An Open Mind
by FullMetal Alchemistress
Summary: The Doctor left the half human half time lord Doctor and Rose on a beach. But the new Doctor is still connected to the original Doctor. He sees things, dreams when he sleeps. He sees the Doctor continuing his adventures in the TARDIS. But as time goes on, the dreams start leaving their mark on this new, human Doctor...
1. Pandorica Part 1

**WARNING YOU NOW THERE WILL BE SPOILERS FOR EVERYTHING AFTER SERIES 4.**

**This fic is I don't even know. It was gonna be a series of unrelated oneshots, but it's really just gonna end up being a chapter fic, I know it.**

**Anyways, just plowed my way through the newer Doctor Who series so HERE COMES THE FANFICS. I did an art piece of Tennant when Rose left and had prints available in Artist Alley at a local anime convention and there were a LOT of Whovians there. I got a lot of "OMG WHY WOULD YOU EVEN CREATE THAT?" and "I DON'T WANNA WAKE UP EVERY MORNING SEE THIS AND SOB!"**

**But the dealer selling the liscenced BBC posters couldn't resist buying one ;P**

**ANYWAYS I'M RAMBLING STOP THAT. I promise: After this, author notes will be scarce.**

**PROLOGUE**

"_Rose." The girl in question didn't turn away from where the TARDIS had disappeared on the beach. She merely squeezed the Doctor's hand tighter in acknowledgement. The Doctor leaned down closer to her and whispered, "I'm still here. You still have _me_."_

_Without a word, Rose finally turned to face the doctor and studied him for a minute. He felt some sort of way about it—anxious? Nervous? Worried? She had on that face—the same one she had when he'd regenerated right in front of her—she was studying him, he knew. Looking for some sign that he was a fake, a copy._

_But she found none. And with bone-crushing force, she threw herself at the man and grabbed onto him, for fear he'd disappear, too._

The Doctor rolled over and ran a hand down his face, yawning. Another fitful night of dreaming. At least this time the dreams were things that had happened to _him_, and not the other Doctor. He rolled onto his back and glanced over at the other side of the bed—empty.

He sat up and ran a hand through his hair just as Rose walked into the bedroom, hair damp and cheeks flushed from a shower. She offered up a smile, threw her towel over the back of the small desk chair, and sat down on the edge of the bed.

"Sleep well?" He didn't answer and she sighed. "There's gotta be something we can do."

"There isn't," he told her softly.

She stood, suddenly, and grabbed her phone off the nightstand next to the bed. "You can't live like this," she muttered angrily with a shrug, as if it was so simple. As if he could just…_stop_.

"I didn't sleep much," he started. He knew this was a losing argument—they'd been through this endless circle of an argument before, but there were things about himself—hundreds and hundreds of years of things—that he had yet to admit to Rose.

"I know," Rose murmured distracted by her phone.

The Doctor let out a puff of air and stood, grabbing Rose's hands in their frantic assault on the keys. "I didn't sleep much," he repeated, she looked up at him curiously. "On the TARDIS."

"Alright," she said slowly, closing her phone, "I'll bite."

"When I was traveling on the TARDIS—the other me, that is—I didn't sleep much. Didn't need to. Sleep is such a human thing—recovering from a mere 24 hours," he scoffed. He pushed away from Rose and dashed about the room as he would have in the console room of the TARDIS, pulling on various clothing.

"So how much sleep does a Time Lord need?" Rose prompted.

"Welllll," he began, pants around his waist but unbuttoned, fingers frozen. "Coupla hours every so often—wellll—when I say _coupla hours_—"

Rose raised an eyebrow at him and he immediately finished buttoning his jeans and pulled a t-shirt over his head. When he was finished dressing, he jammed his hands in his pockets and looked at her. The sudden seriousness to his demeanor worried Rose.

"Doctor," she said softly, reaching down and pulling his hands out of his pockets so that she could wrap his arms around her.

"If you think the dreams are bad now." He let out a humorless laugh. "I used to see all kinds of things. I guess the human in me tones them down a bit."

"What kind of things?"

"Guilt," he said simply. "People I couldn't help. People whose lives I've ruined because of my incessant need to show off."

"Lives you've—what?"

But the Doctor didn't elaborate. Instead he gave her a quick kiss and placed her phone back in her hands. "You'll be late to Torchwood if you don't hurry."

She paused as he walked to the other side of the bed, messing with something in his own little nightstand. "What did you dream about last night?"

He looked up, surprised. Not that she hadn't always asked what he'd been bothered by at night, but her curious tone caught something in his attention. "It was a memory. One of my own."

"Oh?"

He shut the drawer he was in and stood. "From Bad Wolf Bay. When the Doctor left and it was just you and me."

"And that made you restless?" she mumbled, not sure how to take that.

"No, no, no," he quickly relented. "It's just…not…I've had better memories since then."

She paused and narrowed her eyes at him, looking for his telltale signs of lying. Finding none she gave a little smile and headed for the door.

"You can always come with—" she began to call over her shoulder.

"I've had enough of Torchwood, if you _don't_ mind," he called back. She waited until she heard the faint click of the front door to their apartment before he turned and leaned against the wall in thought.

Rose was right about one thing. He couldn't keep living like this. Going to bed tired and waking up exhausted, only resting during short, odd naps while Rose was working at Torchwood. He rubbed his eyes with the palms of his hands and slid to the floor.

When did the dreams even start?

**Next chapter is where we will begin the little oneshots, which will follow Tennent's last episodes and all of Matt's.**


	2. Pandorica Part 2

The first time it happened was probably the worst. And not just because neither he nor Rose were prepared. It was three days after they'd gotten back from Bad Wolf Bay…

Jackie and Rose had been staying with Pete in that big house of his, which had been rebuilt since the Cybermen incident. Rose had a small, separate apartment closer to Torchwood, but tended to only stay there when she had long shifts. Jackie and Pete offered to let Rose and the Doctor stay with them—they had plenty of spare rooms, even with Tony as the new addition. But seeing as how she wasn't alone anymore, Rose figured it was about time she stopped living with her mother.

The first night or two had been awkward to say the least. The first night, the Doctor hadn't slept—he claimed he wasn't used to it. The second night he had passed out in Rose's bed. She didn't argue with that.

The third night, he saw things.

_A man stood in a class case. _

"_I've lived too long…"_

_The Doctor approached the other case as the man screamed and pleaded with him to stop, to leave him there, that he wasn't worth it. But the Doctor knew—no one was ever not worth it. A single life could change the whole world. He'd seen it._

_He stopped at the door to the other case and looked towards the elderly man. "Wilfred, it's my honor. Better be quick." He jerked the door open and quickly stepped inside, sealing himself in. "Three, two one…" The button was pressed and the Doctor immediately curled into himself, his body absorbing the radiation in waves._

Rose woke with a start as a noise alerted her to the problem. The screams cut off and shifted to muffled groans next to her. She cut the bedside lamp on and immediately identified the source.

"Doctor?" she said, nudging his shoulder. He had pulled the blankets up over his head. She jerked them down, the sight beneath waking her up completely. "Doctor!" He was writhing in pain, covered in sweat, and grimacing in his sleep.

"Doctor, wake up!" she demanded. His forehead was hot and he was gasping for air. As soon as it started, though, it was over. "Doct—"

He shot up in bed, still gasping for air, but he was awake. He looked down at himself, hand over his frantic—but still beating—heart. "Still alive, then," he breathed. A small noise drew his attention to Rose. "What?"

"'_What'?_ Are you serious?" She shifted so that she was a little more comfortable, legs crossed beneath her. "That was one hell of a dream you were havin'. Are you feeling alright? I think you got a fever." She went to check his head again, but it was no longer as hot as it was before.

"I don't think that was a dream," he muttered, standing up and pulling on a robe before jerking the door open and storming out into the hallway.

"Whattya mean that wasn't a dream?" Rose demanded, following after him. He stood in the middle of their small kitchen, all the lights on, staring at his hands. "Doctor, _what _is going on?"

Before he could answer, though, he collapsed to his knees, a guttural groan escaping his lips. Rose leapt into action and helped him to his feet and over to the couch.

"It's started," he muttered.

"What? What's _started_?" Rose demanded, sitting next to him. She took his face in her hands and forced him to look at her.

"The Doctor—the other Doctor—it's started," he told her gently. "He's regenerating."

Fear turned Rose's blood to ice at his words. She knew what that meant. He'd told her when he'd done it before. It was a defense—when Time Lords were dying, every cell in their bodies changed. The other Doctor was dying.

"How do you know?" she asked him. "How do you know? It's just a dream, it doesn't _mean _anything—"

"I know because it's not a dream, Rose. It's real and it's happening." He took Rose's hands in his.

"What'll happen to you?"

He stood and pulled her up with a small smile. "Come on then, let's get back to bed."

"Doctor," Rose repeated, barely letting him lead her back to their room, "What'll happen to _you_?"

"I'll probably be fine," he murmured, turning back to their room. "Now, it's two in the morning and way past your bed time, Rose Tyler." She went without argument, but knew that this conversation—this whole situation, actually—was far from over.

And she was right. The Doctor lay in bed for an hour or two after they'd returned to their room. Rose had almost immediately fallen back to sleep, his hand entwined with hers beneath the blankets.

The sun had just begun to light the room when he finally drifted off.

_He was visiting all of his past companions. Martha and Mickey, Sarah Jane and her son, Jack and Alonso, Martha and her new husband, Wilf and his daughter. Everyone seemed to have someone. A companion. _

_Then there was Rose. She would always have someone, he knew. But he couldn't visit the Rose that knew him._

"Doctor," Rose murmured, trying to nudge him out of his fitful sleep. "Doctor, please wake up."

His eyes finally fluttered back and he looked up at his companion. His Rose.

"Still dreaming?" she asked, standing and straightening her side of the bed. She'd already showered and dressed.

"Yeah," he grunted, sitting up. His head was killing him. He glanced at the clock and quickly did the math in his head. Four hours and the other Doctor had managed to visit most of his companions. "He was visiting everyone."

"Who?" Rose asked, sitting down on top of the blankets. She was dressed in a t-shirt and sweatpants.

"Aren't you going to be late for work?" he asked, eyebrows pulling together. He might not work there, but he was sure the dress code was not that lax.

"I'm not going in today. I'm taking a sick day."

He quirked an eyebrow at her and took her in—complexion was fine, eyes were fine, sounded fine. "But you're not sick."

She raised her eyebrows and smirked at him. "_I'm _not…" It clicked, then, and he looked up. "It's just for today," she amended. "I just want to make sure you're alright." She fidgeted with the hem of her shirt—which was actually _his _shirt, he now realized. "I just got you back, I don't want…"

He took her hand in his. "He visited you, too. Do you remember?"

"What?"

"Think back. New Years day. There was a drunk on the side of the road. Asked you the date. Ring any bells?" She studied him with an alarmed look. "2005, January the first. He told you, 'tell you what'—"

"I bet you're gonna have a really great year," Rose finished in a whisper. "I remember. I didn't know—he—"

"Calm down," the Doctor chuckled. "It's alright." But as soon as the words left his mouth, a grunt followed shortly after and he doubled over into the bed.

"Doctor?" Rose hovered over him, trying to uncurl him from the ball he was in. "Doctor, come on, listen to me. It's not real."

"You don't believe that," he ground out.

"No," she agreed, voice shaking, "but it's going to be ok. Because I'm right here. Tell me what to do—how can I help?" He jerked and she tilted his face up to look at her. His eyes were unfocused and his forehead was impossibly hot again. She tried her best to get him to lean back and lie down. He let out a fierce cry of pain and pushed down into the mattress.

"What do I do?" she whispered to herself. She was completely helpless. Everything that was happening was in his head—she didn't even know what he was seeing. She grabbed his wrist and checked his pulse. Despite the rapid breathing, it was slow. "Doctor?" He was no longer conscious.

_The broken and dying man managed to claw his way back to the TARDIS. He shed his coat and draped it over one of the pillars and made his way to the center console. Inspecting his hand and the golden light coming from it, he knew in the bottom of his heart that it was time. His time. _

_But why? He'd done so much as this incarnation. There was still so much he wanted to see, wanted to do. He wasn't ready. He'd had so much fun as the tenth Doctor._

_The regeneration had already begun. He'd already stalled once before. This time there was no going back._

_He stumbled up to the console and flipped a switch. The TARDIS jumped to life, the pipes singing their familiar song as they began to move through space and time. _

"I don't wanna go."

Rose's attention snapped back to the bed, where the Doctor was talking in his sleep.

"_The glowing intensified until it was all he was. The sudden explosion of power erupted from his body, igniting the walls of the TARDIS. And then, everything, every cell of his body changed. And he was no more. He was…someone else. He was still the Doctor, but his body was different, foreign. _

_And the TARDIS was crashing. _

Rose watched as the Doctor finally seemed to settle and sleep peacefully. An hour later and his fever seemed to have vanished completely. She made him some tea and settled back into the desk to work on some things she'd brought home from Torchwood.

It was nearly three in the afternoon when he finally seemed to wake up.

"You feeling better?" she asked as he sat up cautiously, taking the tea that she was offering him.

"He regenerated," he said simply before chugging the now-room-temperature tea.

"So…" Rose prompted, taking the empty cup from him and setting it aside on the nightstand.

"So I think it's over," he said with a grin. "Over. Done. Last I saw he landed the TARDIS. Welll—when I say _landed _I mean _crashed_. Welll—when I said _crashed _I mean _destroyed_. Flames. Completely trashed the interior. Gonna take a while to repair it. He landed in the swimming pool, so I think he's doing fine, though."

"And you're ok?"

The Doctor was fully aware just how worried Rose had been about him. And here she was, asking about _his _wellbeing when the "real" Doctor had just nearly died and destroyed the TARDIS during a regeneration. In a spur of energy, he leaned over and kissed her, then stood up and started digging through his drawers full of new clothes, picking out something to wear for whatever was left of the day.

He glanced at the clock. "Let's go out for a late lunch. Or early dinner, if you'd prefer."

She grinned up at him from the bed. "Alright."

But that was only the beginning. The first of many dreams.


	3. Pandorica Part 3

It had been nearly three weeks since the dreams had started. Rose had been writing down every dream since then. He'd had a new one almost every night since then. When the Doctor had found her little journal of his dreams he had taken over, telling her he could be more descriptive since he was the one living vicariously through the eyes of the other Doctor.

"So what was last night?" Rose asked during dinner one night.

"Something's wrong. The Doctor's in trouble," he muttered around a mouthful of food.

"Isn't he always?" Rose asked with a chuckled and a signature grin. But the Doctor didn't return the smile. She studied his expression for a minute while he ate. "You're worried."

"River Song defaced a historical rock just to get the Doctor's attention. And the Pandorica kept coming up. I don't know, it was a dream—choppy and I barely remember half of it now."

"River Song? Pandorica?"

"River Song is his—uhm—close…friend," he tried to explain. "It's complicated. But the Pandorica—that's what's got me worried."

"Why?" Rose asked. "What's the Pandorica?"

"A prison. A box that was made to hold the most powerful, feared thing in the entire universe. The Pandorica is a myth. A fairytale," the Doctor explained, throwing his plate in the sink and retrieving his little dream journal.

"Think there's connections in other dreams?" Rose asked. The Doctor slid his chair around the table so that he was next to her and she could look through the journal with him.

"More than that. Right before I woke up this morning, they _saw _the Pandorica."

"So it's not a myth," Rose clarified.

"Right," the Doctor nodded. "There was a goblin, or a trickster, or a warrior—a nameless, terrible thing soaked in the blood of a billion galaxies. The most feared being in all the cosmos. And nothing could stop it or hold it or reason with it. One day it would just drop out of the sky and tear down the whole world. It ended up in there because—you know fairytales. A good wizard tricked it."

"So what's inside?" Rose asked, but got no answer. He just flipped through the pages of his book.

"Everyone else seemed to know what the Pandorica is so—why don't I know?"

Rose froze the Doctor's frantic fingers with her touch. "Calm down—even if you did know you couldn't possibly help. We're here and they're there."

"You don't understand, Rose."

"Then _tell me_ so that I will," she told him as gently as she could.

"The last thing I saw before I woke—the very last thing, was every enemy I've ever had. Every single fleet—Daleks, Cybermen, Slitheen, you name them they were in the sky just _waiting _for the Pandorica to open."

"But why?" Rose asked uselessly. She took the book from him and began to flip through herself. "Okay, every odd end from every dream. The first dream after the regeneration—"

"The crack in the wall," he said for her.

"The second dream, about the whale thing?" she asked, finding the pages for it.

But he shook his head. "Don't think there was anything in that one. The next one was the Dalek one, right?"

"Yeah. Nothing there, either."

"The one after that—you know, I've never heard of this one—"

The Doctor dove to flip the pages. "Nothing, nothing. Just Weeping Angels." He began to flip past it when something caught his eye and he stopped. "But at the end—the crack in the wall. It was bigger, much bigger. All the Weeping Angels fell into the crack. He said 'The crack is gone but the explosion that caused it is still happening. Somewhere out there in time.' And then River Song said she's see him again when the Pandorica opens."

Rose smirked. "River Song. That's why I've never been told of this dream. Well, an explosion causes the crack—isn't there a dream later…" She pulled the book closer and began to search. "Here." She pushed the book in front of him. "The Doctor reached into the crack and pulled out a piece of the TARDIS."

The pieces were slowly coming together to form a partial picture. "And in my dream this morning River handed him a Van Gogh painting—the TARDIS exploding. So the TARDIS is exploding at every point in time, but _why_?" He jumped up and began to pace around their small kitchen.

Rose leaned back in her chair and watching him think for a second. She could almost see the gears in his head going a million miles an hour. "That's not a question for _you."_

"What do you mean?" he asked her, confused and slightly annoyed.

"That's a question for the Doctor to answer."

"I am the Doctor."

"Not what I meant," she sighed. "You know that. There's a different question that _you _have to answer."

He stopped pacing and eyed her, crossing his arms. "Alright, Rose Tyler. What question is it that _I _have to answer?"

"Why are you still connected to the Doctor when everything was sealed off finally?"

The Doctor just stared at her, watching her try to hide the smug look on her face. He didn't know. He didn't even know where to begin to answer that. Nothing. He had nothing about that answer. He hadn't even tried.

He was too busy with another problem. When the Doctor got hurt in these dreams, he _felt _it. All of it. Every cut, scrape, and bruise. There was never any scratch when he woke, but it felt so _real_. He would ache for hours after he woke.

What would happen if the Doctor got seriously hurt—or worse?

"It doesn't need to be answered right now," Rose murmured, standing up and taking his hands. "You're brilliant and I know you'll figure it out eventually. I just want you to be able to live a normal life here. I don't—I don't want…"

"Want what?" he prompted in a whisper, his face dangerously close to hers.

"I don't want you to hate it here with me," she whispered back. "You've only got one life."

"And I fully intend to spend it with you," he breathed before capturing her lips with his own.


	4. Pandorica Part 4

**This one kinda got away from me….sorry….it happens….**

Why? Why were they still connected? The universes were supposed to be _parallel—_never touching. So why? The Doctor ran a hand down his face, frustrated. There had to be some part of the hole left unclosed.

But then that begged the question, how did it survive? And then, how would he go about closing it? The other Doctor had left him a piece of TARDIS, but it would still take quite a long time before it would become a working TARDIS.

"Go to sleep, Doctor," Rose muttered from the other side of t he bed.

He looked down at her with an eyebrow raised. "I am," he whispered back, daring to run a hand through her hair.

She sighed and propped herself up on her elbows. "Seriously. It's harmful for humans to avoid sleep."

He gave her a small smile she probably couldn't see in the dark. He knew what would happen if he fell asleep. He knew something big was going to happen. Something huge, and dangerous, and if the Doctor didn't make it out of it alive this time, he was afraid it would kill him, too.

"You'll be fine," Rose mumbled, as if reading his mind. She fell back down into her pillow. "I'll slap you awake if something happens."

"I don't doubt you would," he replied flatly, lying down himself. Putting his trust in Rose's ability to notice something wrong, if anything did go wrong, he allowed himself to drift off, if only for a short bit. Sleep might even help his brain functionality. He might be able to figure things out if he was able to rest for a minute or two.

"_Does it ever bother you, Amy, that your life doesn't make sense?" The Doctor asked the red head. Before she could answer, shots were fired. The two ducked around the Pandorica and out of the range of fire._

"_What was that?" Amy demanded._

"_I need a proper look," the Doctor breathed, tilting his head towards the other side of the box. "Got to draw its fire, give it a target."_

"_How?"_

"_You know how sometimes I have really brilliant ideas?" he asked._

"_Yes," she moaned, rolling her eyes at his lack of modesty._

"_Sorry," he muttered, taking off. "Look at me I'm a target!"Another shot was fired at him and he dove behind a pillar._

"_What is that?" Amy called._

"_Cyber arm, arm of a Cyberman," the Doctor informed her. "It's looking for, well, fresh meat."_

"_That better not mean _us_," Amy growled. _

"_I need to get behind it—could you draw out its fire?"_

"_What—like _you _did?" Amy snapped._

"_You'll be fine if you're quick—it's only got one arm. Literally!" he assured her with a smile and thumbs up._

_With a breath, they took off in opposite directions, Amy screaming to draw attention to herself. The Doctor dove for the arm, quickly shutting it down with his screwdriver. He commanded for Amy to stay behind the Pandorica where she was, that the arm may still be a threat. _

_Before he knew what happened, Amy was face down on the ground and the arm held let out an enormous electric current, sending him unconscious to the floor._

Rose had never heard the Doctor scream like that. The whole bed shook as he went through some kind of seizure. He fell silent almost immediately.

"Doctor?" she nudged him, but there was no response. "Doctor, please wake up." She grabbed her phone off the nightstand as she checked his pulse and other vital signs. "Mum? Mum—I—I _know—_Mum! Put Pete on the phone—Mum, _now." _She waited as her mother woke her father up and handed him the phone almost too painfully slow.

"Rose?"

"I need you," she said, unable to keep her voice from shaking. She couldn't decide if it was adrenaline or fear. Maybe both. "Please."

"What's wrong, what is it?" She noted the change in his voice—clearer, more alert. Good.

"It's the Doctor. Something's wrong. He just, started screaming and—and shaking—I think he just had a seizure, I'm not sure," Rose told him. "His vitals aren't bad, from what I can tell, but his breathing is shallow."

"Alright, calm down. I'll be there in ten minutes at most." Rose could hear her mother in the background trying to talk to him, asking what was going on.

"We can't take him to a hospital, he's still part Time Lord—"

"It's alright. As much as he'll hate it, we'll take him to Torchwood."

Rose let out a breath. "That's probably best, they'll have the tools to help figure out what's been going on with him." She heard a car start on his end.

"What do you mean?" he asked. "Sounds like this is just the tip of the iceberg."

"It kind of is. A big tip," she muttered. "He's been having these dreams, of the other Doctor and the other universe. They've been…affecting him." She placed her hand on the Doctor's forehead. A slight fever, but his breathing had evened out.

"How is that possible?"

"We don't know," she whispered, taking the Doctor's hand in hers.

"_There's going to be an explosion in the future, at every point in time. And everything is cracking around it," the Doctor was explaining to Rory._

"_What was it? What exploded?"_

_The TARDIS. "Doesn't matter," he replied instead. "The cracks—get too close and you fall right out of the universe."_

"Get him out of the car and onto a stretcher," Pete commanded a few white-coated doctors that were waiting for them at Torchwood.

"Be careful with them," Rose added quickly.

Pete flipped open his phone to check on the status of some things inside the building, while Rose monitored the progress of them transporting her Doctor to a stretcher. As soon as he was lying down, she was by his side, trying to coax him awake. But it was no good. This was one hell of a dream he was in.

_The Pandorica let out an ear shattering noise. The Doctor shouted orders to River on the other side of his communicator, but he was cut off as the Pandorica finally opened, shedding a bright light into the cavern. _

"_Ready to come out are you?"_

_A mass of his enemies approached him from behind, River was calling to him on the communicator. Chaos was exploding all around him. Plastic Romans took him by the arms and led him to the front of the Pandorica._

"_The Pandorica is ready," a Roman recited._

"_You have been scanned. Assessed. Understood." The familiar monotonous tone forced the Doctor to twist around in the arms of his captors only to confirm what he'd known. The Daleks. "Doctor."_

"_Scanned?" the Doctor asked, his voice shaking. "Scanned by what, a box?" It was killing him, not knowing what this Pandorica held. ._

"_Your limits and capacities have been extrapolated," a Cyberman responded._

"_The Pandorica is ready," a Sontaran announced._

"_Ready for what?" the Doctor dared to ask. He had a feeling all his questions were about to be answered in the worst way possible. _

"_Ready for you."_

_The Pandorica was fully open now, its light no longer blinding, shielding the inside. The Doctor looked into it, the emptiness making his heart drop. He struggled against his restrainers, fear taking control of his body, unable to look away._

_The plastic Romans began to lead him down a path of his enemies towards the chair that awaited him inside the Pandorica._

"No!"

Rose perked up at the sudden scream and spun around to see the Doctor thrashing about on the bed, upsetting the orderlies who were tending to him. "Pete!" she screamed, diving to keep the Doctor still. "Pete!"

Pete and several of the doctors raced in and sprung into action. As Pete, Rose, and another Doctor fought to keep the Doctor still, the orderlies and a couple other doctors raced about the bed, strapping the Doctor down into it.

"You lot, working together, an alliance," he shouted, eyes open and unseeing.

"Doctor—" Rose tried as everyone backed away from the bed.

"How is that possible?" He paused and his voice turned to a whisper. "The cracks in the universe…all realities are threatened…all universes will be deleted."

"What is he saying?" Pete asked.

"Shh," Rose said. "Someone hand me some paper—write down what he's saying."

"What? And you've come to _me_ for help?" he paused again. "From me? No, no, no—you've got it _wrong_! The cracks aren't from me—not me! The TARDIS! And I'm not _in _the TARDIS, am I?"

"Here, a recorder," a doctor offered, handing her a black box. "Just press the red button."

"Please, listen to me!" the Doctor begged. His eyes were purely frightening to Rose. They were like looking at the open eyes of a dead man—they weren't looking at anything in this world. "Total event collapse—every sun will supernova at every moment in history!" He started gasping, nearly crying in his outburst. "The whole universe will never have existed. Please, listen to me!"

"_Close the Pandorica!"_

"_No, please, listen to me! The TARDIS is exploding right now and I'm the only one who can stop it!" the Doctor cried. Listen to me—!"_

_His plea was cut off as the door to the Pandorica shut with a loud, final clang, and everything went pitch black._

"_No," the Doctor breathed. "Please."_

'_It's pointless,' the Tenth Doctor sighed._

"_Who said that?" the Doctor asked._

'_You can hear me?' the Tenth was taken aback. The other Doctor had never been able to hear him before._

"_You're in my head," he said, "I can hear you in my head. Who are you?"_

'_I'm the Doctor. A previous regeneration. The Tenth.'_

"_Yes—and how do you know who I am then? And why is it only you? Is it because you were the most recent of my regenerations?" the Doctor asked, firing off one question after another but knowing that if he were, in fact, talking to _The _Doctor that it would be no issue._

'_I'm the human you that you left behind in the parallel universe,' he answered simple. 'I've been having dreams about you since you left.'_

"_How is that possible?"_

'_I've been trying to find that exact answer for the past two months or so.'_

"_Has it really only been two months for you?" the Doctor asked, surprised._

'_More or less. What about you?'_

"_A while."_

'_Cryptic as ever. We'll never get anywhere that way. I'm you—you can trust me,' the Tenth told him._

"_Well, it doesn't appear as though I'm going anywhere for a while," the Doctor sighed. "So you have these dreams—"_

'_Right.'_

"—_About what exactly? What have you seen?" the Doctor tried to shift into a slightly less uncomfortable position in the metal chair he was strapped into. God help him the day he got an itch._

'_It started with your regeneration—' he began._

"_Which wasn't too long after I'd left you and Rose."_

'_And then there was the space whale, the Daleks in the world war, helping River Song with the weeping angels—I won't comment on your relationship there because it's none of my business—the vampires in Venice, the time Amy had to choose realities, the journey to the center of the earth—'_

"_Clever—"_

'—_Van Gogh, and living with Craig.'_

"_Oh, Craig! I'd almost forgotten how much you—I talked. And so fast—how did people ever understand a thing I was saying?"_

'_Do I need to repeat myself?'_

"_No, no, but you've been getting dreams from all the most important points in my time stream."_

'_Think that has something to do with it?'_

"_Maybe."_

_Suddenly it was like the darkness was becoming thinner. Like the black was becoming more of a gray. He could hear heavy stones grinding together, a deafening sound. Someone was opening the Pandorica. But who? Who could do that?_

_'Someone is coming to save you.'_

_"No, it's not possible," the Doctor muttered to himself._

_'Why else would someone open the Pandorica?' the Tenth asked._

_"But-"_

_'They've already trapped you in the universe's best prison-'_

_A sudden blinding light cut off whatever the Tenth was going to say and the Eleventh Doctor suddenly found his mind alone again._

The Doctor gasped and his eyes flew open. Loud shrieking machines cut through his ears and a bright light forced his eyes shut. There was sudden movement all around him and he couldn't focus. People were touching him, pulling at things attached to his arms, chest, his head.

"Heart rate and blood pressure are rising," someone announced loudly.

"There are too many people in this room," someone else stated.

The Doctor tried to push people away but found he had no strength in his arms. "No...stop..." He tried to open his eyes again, but the light was still painful. It was a complete opposite feeling from the blackness he had been in moments before. Was this still the Pandorica, he wondered. A small pain shot up his arm suddenly and a grunt escaped his lips.

"He pulled out the IV."

"Sedate him," a more familiar voice commanded firmly. He continued to struggle against the bindings with a little more energy.

"Ms. Tyler, if we sedate him he could slip back-"

"It's apparent three doctors can't handle a half conscious man that's tied to a bed," she snapped, "so I suggest you sedate him before anyone gets hurt."

"Rose," the Doctor muttered, trying to find her with his bound hands.

Fingers slipped into his. "I'm here." Another hand found his cheek. "Calm down, you're fine. You're at Torchwood." Somehow that gave him no comfort at all.

"Rose," he tried to protest, but something, an exhaustion, hit him like a ton of bricks.

"Sleep, Doctor," Rose whispered.


	5. Pandorica Part 5

"_How did you do that?" the Doctor breathed as his mechanical bindings opened. Rory stood, completely shocked, in front of him, outside the Pandorica._

"_You gave me this," he said, holding up a sonic screwdriver._

_The Doctor pulled out his own, equally shocked. "No I didn't."_

"_You did," Rory insisted and the Doctor left the Pandorica. "Look at it."_

_Hesitantly, the Doctor poked Rory's screwdriver with his own, a small explosion popping through the air. "Temporal energy, same screwdriver, different points in its own timestream, which means it _was _me who gave it to you, me from the future." He paused and seemed to get excited for a second. "I've got a future! That's nice."His eyes traveled over Rory's shoulder. "That's not."_

_The Doctor studied the statue-like echoes of his one-time enemies. A short but complex explanation left Rory confused and the Doctor with diminishing hope._

_He stopped his pacing and looked at Rory. "Amy—where's Amy?"_

_Without a word, Rory turned on his heal and led the Doctor to where he'd left Amy's body. The Doctor immediately sprung into action, mind reeling to find a way to save his best friend, while Rory paced behind him, trying to convince the Doctor that he wasn't just some toy soldier created from a memory._

"_I'm Rory!" he insisted._

"_That's software talking," the Doctor mumbled, distracted by his screwdriver._

"_Can you help her?" Rory pleaded. "Is there anything you can do?"_

"_Probably," the Doctor shrugged. "If I had the time."_

"_The time?" Rory growled._

"_All of creation has just been wiped from the sky. Do you know how many lives now never happened? All the people who never lived? Your _girlfriend _isn't more important than the whole universe."_

_Unable to take it, Rory grabbed the Doctor by the shoulder, spun him around, and decked him. The Doctor fell to the ground like a rock._

"_She is to me!" Rory yelled._

The Doctor woke with a gasp, his jaw throbbing. He went to rub it, to attempt to ease the pain, and found his arms bound to the bed he was lying on. Beeping surrounded him as he felt his own heart begin to pound in his chest, faster. An oxygen mask was attached to his face, which he desperately wanted gone.

He looked around at the empty room and lay still, waiting. The erratic beeping didn't calm, but he knew someone heard it. He knew someone would come. He took the time to assess his little situation. He knew he was no longer in the Pandorica—but was he awake? If he was, it sure looked a lot like Torchwood and he wasn't sure which place he preferred the least.

The door opened and a disheveled looking Pete and a nameless doctor rushed in. Pete reached over and pulled the mask off his face while the doctor shut down the machine's screeching.

"Where's Rose?" the Doctor asked, not liking this one bit. The Torchwood theory seemed to solidify the minute Pete walked in the room.

"On her way," Pete said with a smile that did little to comfort him. But he wasn't looking for comfort, he was looking for answers.

"Why am I tied down to a bed in the middle of Torchwood?" he demanded, pulling at the cuffs for emphasis. Last he remembered he was in bed at his and Rose's apartment.

"It was for your own protection," the doctor began. "We need to run some tests—"

Pete held up his hand and the doctor's words died on his lips. "Doctor, we won't do anything to you unless we have your consent." He leaned across the bed and began to unbuckle the cuffs. "Rose has been careful in what she lets us do. But we only want to help."

Slightly grateful, the Doctor sat up and rubbed his jaw as soon as his hands were free. "Thank you," he mumbled, shooting a glance behind him at the monitors. Simple heart rate, IV, blood pressure things. Basic monitoring. Other than IV fluids, there was nothing he couldn't identify.

"Where is she? How far away?" he asked, a little less angry and demanding.

"Should be here any second now," he told him. "Your heart rate monitor is linked to her phone."

"Are you feeling better?" Pete asked carefully.

The Doctor didn't answer for a second. He wasn't sure if _he _even knew the answer. He sure as hell had no idea what was going on still. "It's not over yet," was all he said.

The Doctor could hear someone racing down the hallway towards what he assumed was his room. A frantic blond flew into the doorway and looked around. She said nothing, just grinned through her tears when she saw him and closed the distance between them as fast as she could. She wrapped her arms around him and buried her face in his shoulder.

"You're ok," she chanted.

"Of course I'm ok," he chuckled into her hair. "I'm the Doctor."

She pulled back and gave him a strange look, then glanced over her shoulder at Pete and the doctor. "Has no one told you yet?"

"Told me what?" he asked as slowly and evenly as he could.

She took his face in her hands. "You've been in a coma for almost three weeks now. You woke up for a few minutes the other day, but other than that, nothing since you went to bed that night."

He just stared at her for a minute and she wasn't sure he heard her. But the look in his eye told her that he had, in fact, heard her and was, in fact, thinking _something_ big.

"How long were we in the Pandorica?" he muttered to himself, running a hand through his hair.

"What?" Rose's eyebrows pulled together.

The Doctor just took a slow breath and gave her a small smile. "It's a very, very long story—well when I say _long story _it's not really _my _story. It's the Doctor's—the other Doctor. In the dreams he's in trouble—was. He's not now, or then. I don't know. I'm not sure if our timelines are lined up. Maybe all of this already happened to him and—"

"Doctor," Rose said loudly. "Slow down."

"He said the same thing," the Doctor muttered. "Said I talked too fast."

"Who said that?" Pete asked. Upon seeing the Doctor's eyes flick over to the doctor, who had taken the time to adjust the IV stand, motioned for him to leave.

"The other Doctor," he replied when the door to his room was shut.

"Wait," Rose held up a hand. "You talked to him?"

"Yeah, when he was trapped in the Pandorica."

Silence filled the room.

"Start from the beginning," Rose suggested.


	6. Pandorica Part 6

**So I ended up re-writing the second half of this chapter. I don't write linearly—I write scenes at a time and not always in order. It helps keep me from having what some people called "writing blocks." Well, in this chapter, when the Doctor has a revelation, I had the same epiphany at the same time. Hopefully you'll be able to figure out what it is, if not, you'll be surprised.**

**I was originally just going to finish this fic off at the end of this arc—the end of the whole Pandorica mess—but with the 50****th**** Anniversary coming up, me not getting into the artist alley at Banzaicon, and Bleach going on a 5 week hiatus, I've found a lot more free time. Time plus the epiphany I just had equals more story.**

Rose walked into the room balancing two trays of food in her arms. She shut the door with her foot and proceeded to the bed, handing off one of the trays to the Doctor. He'd explained as much as he could remember about the dream to them, which had taken a lot longer than he thought. Pete had excused himself just as Rose had left to find food for them.

"So you don't think it's over yet?" Rose asked, breaking the silence. She sat facing him from the foot of the bed. Their knees were touching beneath the small hospital food table between them. Every little twitch that knocked his knees into hers sent pleasure through her body. He was awake and moving on his own.

He chewed carefully, eyes cast downward, away from her. "I _know _it's not over yet. Amy's dead and the universes are collapsing in on itself." Something dawned on him then and he nearly dropped his fork.

"What?" she asked, fork paused halfway to her mouth. "What is it?"

"If all of that is really happening, we should be seeing it happen, too—the side effects so to speak."

"The cracks?"

"Not just the cracks," he breathed, jumping out of the bed. He stumbled a bit, but caught himself on the windowsill. "The stars. The stars were going out."

"Stars?" Rose asked, joining him at the window. She looked out at the flat blackness of the sky.

"Yes, the stars," he muttered in disbelief. They were all already gone. "Nothing I can do from here." He turned and leaned against the windowsill, eyes shut tight, one hand to his temples.

"What do you think is gonna happen?" Rose asked, sitting back down to finish her meal. The Doctor looked up at her.

"The disappearances of the stars aren't phasing her one bit—must be another side effect. But why is it affecting _us_? Why _here,_ too? Travel between universes was simpler when there were more Time Lords." He pushed off the wall and began to pace. "Welll, when I say _simpler _I mean it still wasn't easy, but there are no other Time Lords—" He froze in realization.

"Doctor?" Rose noticed his verbal stumble, her full attention now on him.

"Did you ask me something?" he asked her suddenly, covering up his mishap and hoping she brushed it off.

She narrowed her eyes at him and promised herself to drill him when she knew he was feeling better. "I asked what you think will happen to the Doctor next."

The Doctor shut his eyes and tried to remember what had happened last. The Doctor began to pace again. The lights in the room were making his headache escalate, even through tightly lidded eyes.

Amy was dead—Rory was more than a little pissed off. If what the Doctor had learned about the Pandorica was right, all the Doctor would have to do would be put Amy in the Pandorica, hope some archeologists found it, wait a couple thousand years, and have a younger Amy visit it. The Pandorica would then read her DNA and bring her back to life, so to speak. What then? The Doctor wouldn't just wait two thousand—River's Vortex Manipulator. Brilliant.

The Doctor's pacing halted. "The Daleks…?"

Rose turned rigid and watched the Doctor carefully. "What?"

The Doctor didn't answer though, he jolted, mouth dropping into a silent scream. He fell back against the window, legs giving out. Rose dove from the bed and fought to keep him upright.

She began to call to him, but knew it was useless when she saw the dark red liquid blossoming across his t-shirt. "Pete!" she called instead. "Pete! Anyone!" She was torn between staying there with him and tearing ass through the halls of Torchwood in search of her father and the doctors.

She didn't need to, though, when a female doctor and security guard burst into the room. "What's wrong?" the doctor asked as the guard wordlessly dropped to the floor next to her.

"I—I don't know, he was just pacing, talking to me. All of a sudden he collapsed and started bleeding," Rose explained.

"Get him back to the bed," the doctor ordered. The security guard nodded and lifted the thin man with ease. Rose moved out of the way and made quick work of cleaning up their dinner mess.

"Where's Pete?" Rose asked.

"He ran home for a minute—something about Tony," the guard told her before leaving. "I'll go and fetch the others."

"Right," the doctor muttered, cutting off the Doctor's shirt. "Can you hand me some gauze?" She gestured to a drawer next to the door with her free hand. Rose nodded and retrieved a box. When she turned back to the doctor and her Doctor, she froze next to the bed. "What is going on?"

"I have no idea," Rose murmured. "Is that…" her hand drifted towards the wound on the Doctor's abdomen. "Is that a _burn_?"

"Third degree," the doctor breathed. "But how—"

"Stay with him, Dr…"

"Amell," she replied.

"Dr. Amell. Please, stay here—I'm gonna go call Pete."

"Wait, answer me a few questions, please," she asked, catching Rose by the sleeve. "What was he doing when this happened—exactly?"

Rose swallowed and nodded, thankful they weren't questions she was expecting—DNA questions. "He was pacing. We were talking."

Dr. Amell applied some sort of topical ointment the wound. "What were you guys talking about—if you don't mind my asking."

"Nothing personal," Rose muttered. "We were talking about his dreams—but he wasn't dreaming. He was just walking around, thinking with his eyes shut. He wasn't asleep."

Dr. Amell's eyes snapped up to meet Rose's. "A person doesn't need to be asleep to dream."

"You mean daydreaming?" Dr. Amell only lifted an eyebrow and proceeded to dress the Doctor's wound. "I'm gonna go call Pete," Rose muttered, mind racing too fast to think straight anymore.

"_Doctor!" _

_Voices echoed through the halls of the museum, but the Doctor couldn't find the strength to lift his head let along call out to them. He heard them getting closer and prayed they wouldn't try to stop him._

"_Why did he tell us he was dead?" Rory demanded._

_Hands lifted his head up and cupped his face._

"_We were a diversion," Amy concluded."As long as the Dalek was chasing _us, he _could work _down here_."_

"_Doctor," River breathed, closed to him. Right in front of him. "Can you hear me? What were you doing?"_

_Light flickered through the museum and a low rumble began to shake the building._

"_What's happening?"_

"_Reality's collapsing," River mumbled, stepping out of the Pandorica."It's speeding up. Time is running out." She turned back to the man in the box. "Doctor, what were you doing? Tell us?" She shook him, frantically trying to understand the brilliant man's moves."Doctor!"_

_The Doctor took a shuddering breath and pooled all his energy to open his eyes and look at the frantic, scared woman before him. "Big…bang…two," he whispered._

"_The big bang?" Rory said. "It's the beginning of the universe, right?"_

"_What and Big Bang Two is the bang that brings us back?" Amy snapped. "Is that what you mean?"_

"_Oh," River gasped, the Doctor's plan clicking together in her head._

"_What?" Amy asked, taking a step forward in anticipation._

_River spun around, eyes wide in wonder. "The TARDIS is still burning. It's exploding at every point in history. If you threw the Pandorica into the explosion right into the heart of the fire—"_

"_Then what?" _

"_Then let there be light," River explained with a shake of her head and a shrug. "The light from the Pandorica would explode everywhere at once." She spun back to the Doctor. "Just like he said."_

"_And that would work," Amy pleaded. "That would bring everything back?"_

"_A restoration field powered by an exploding TARDIS happening at every moment in history," River breathed. The Doctor could feel his energy wavering. River's voice fading slowly. "Oh, that's brilliant. It might even…" And then she was gone._

'_Can you hear me?'_

You're inside my head again,_ the Doctor thought, unable to speak._

'_It seems your little run-in with the Dalek has led to some unforeseen effects on my end.'_

Where are you?_ The Doctor demanded._

'_In the other dimension, where you left me. But to be more specific, I'm lying in a medical bed in the middle of Torchwood. Thanks for that, by the way.'_

How is that my fault?_ he demanded. _What is going on over there?

'_I haven't come to a definitive conclusion, but the problems you're having over there are effecting us, too. Our stars are gone, but the people are still here.'_

And how does that put you in Torchwood?

'That _I have a _how_ but not a _why_. When you get hurt there, I feel it here. You get trapped in the Pandorica, I slip into a three-week coma.'_

I'll bet Rose was pleased with that one, _he thought with sarcasm._

'_Oh, thrilled. But most recent, when you got hit by the Dalek—well, I just know I ended up back here.'_

In my mind, _the Doctor finished. _But—

'_How? Why?' _The Doctor could almost see his tenth incarnation grinning_. 'Well, Doctor, I'm so glad you asked.'_


	7. Pandorica Part 7

'_Like I mentioned before, I don't know the why, only the how—and it's just a guess.'_

I thought you said you _knew_.

'_Welll—when I say _knew _it's more like _theorized_.'_

_The light in the room shifted to red as the explosion spread outwards and interrupted their conversation as the Doctor regained part of his consciousness._

"_Doctor?" he heard River asked, her cold hand stroking his hair away from his eyes._

"_River," he sighed. "He never got to tell me how."_

"_Sweetie," she murmured. "Who? How what?"_

_He found the energy to open his eyes and look at her. "The other Doctor—my hand." He tapped his temple. "He's in here. Right now. I can feel him still." His eyes darted around them. "It's because of the Pandorica, I think."_

"_Sweetie, what are you going on about?"_

"_Nevermind. Different problem. I'll deal with it later." He tried to sit up straighter. "Let me talk to Amy." River's hand hovered above him before she offered up a sad, small smile and nodded._

Are you there? _he thought in wonder. No response. It seemed to be one sided—the other Doctor could see everything he did, but he couldn't see into the alternate universe. How? How, how, how?_

"_Hi." The gentle voice shook him out of his thoughts and he looked up to see the Scottish redhead._

"_Amy Pond," he breathed. "The girl who waited. All night in your garden. Was it worth it?"_

_She blinked back her tears. "Shut up. Of course it was."_

"_You asked me why I was taking you with me and I said, 'no reason.' I was lying," he admitted, thinking out loud._

"_It's not important," Amy muttered._

"_Yeah," the Doctor argued. "It's the most important thing left in the universe. It's why I'm doing this. Amy—your house was too big. That big, empty house with just you."_

"_My aunt was there," Amy interrupted._

"_Where was everybody who lived in that big house?"_

"_I lost my mum and dad."_

"_How?" the Doctor asked suddenly. The question of the hour, it seemed. "What happened to them? Where did they go?"_

"_I—I don't…"_

"_It's ok, it's ok," the Doctor murmured. "Don't panic. It's not your fault. There was a crack in time in the wall of your bedroom. And it's been eating away at your life for a long time now. Amy Pond. All alone. The girl who didn't make sense. How could I resist?"_

"_How could I just forget?"_

"_Nothing is ever forgotten," the Doctor told her carefully, leaving these words in her mind. "Not really. You just have to try."_

_The building shook again, this time more rough than before. "Doctor!" River called. "It's speeding up!"_

_Amy backed out of the Pandorica slowly, watching at the metal bindings closed around the Doctor once again. The door shut with a clang. Laughing, chest heaving, he rushed to type out a final message to River. One last word._

_The Pandorica rattled around harshly, the Doctor's wounds knocking up against the metal painfully._

I can feel you there, now_, the Doctor thought absently. _Still haven't woken up in your universe?

'_I didn't get to tell you the how. We were so rudely interrupted.'_

_If he was at the heart of the explosion, the cracks would close around him. He would never have been born. The Daleks, Time Lords, Gallifrey—they'd all be restored. Rose, Mickey, Jackie—they'd all be returned to their universe. The other Doctor would never exist. He wouldn't be having these problems. Rose would never have met him—she'd be able to live a happy life with Mickey or someone else._

_Maybe it was better that way._

'_Shut up. Let me tell you how—'_

Does it matter anymore? _The Doctor asked him._

'_What?'_

After this, I won't ever have existed. That means you wouldn't either, _he explained._

_Suddenly it was like the two were being ripped away from each other, the universe rewinding, and the Doctor woke up on the TARDIS._

Rose blinked and looked down at her phone where the words "PETE CELL" were fading from the screen.

"What's wrong?" Her mother came up behind her and looked over her daughter's shoulder.

"I don't remember," she breathed in confusion. "I was calling someone named Pete."

"Pete?"

"Yeah." Rose's eyebrows pulled together and she looked around, immediately recognizing her and her mother's flat. "I feel like—oh, I don't know. My head hurts." She turned and headed for the kitchen, filling up a glass of water. Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed a blue pinstripe suit jacket hanging on the back of one of the kitchen chairs. "Mum," she called.

"What?" Jackie asked, appearing in the doorway. "What is it?"

"Is that yours?" she asked her mother, gesturing to the foreign article of clothing.

Confusion clouded Jackie's face. "No, it's not mine. I thought it was yours—that, that bloke of yours."

"What bloke of mine? Mickey?" She walked over and pulled the jacket off the chair.

"No, the one with the crazy hair," Jackie said, passing her to put her empty mug in the sink.

"Great hair," Rose responded automatically. "Wait." In the blink of an eye, the jacket she was holding disappeared.

"Did you just—" Jackie stuttered, pointing at Rose's still hand.

"Yeah," Rose muttered. "Something's wrong." She jerked her own coat off another chair and headed for the door. "I'm going for a walk."

The air outside bit at Rose's face, but she charged on down the sidewalk like she didn't notice. People passed her without a second glance. She looked up to the sky out of habit, and something else clicked in her head. Something was missing.

She would just brush it off as serious déjà vu if she hadn't witnessed the blue jacket disappear right in front of her eyes. Something was going on. Something…something foreign. Alien. Rose blinked at the thought, the word _alien_ fitting the description too well in her head.

It felt like she was forgetting something, something big. She looked up at one of the tallest buildings in the city, Torchwood Tower. She'd been in there once or twice—it was just an office building.

"You dropped this," a woman said, stopping Rose by gently tugging her arm. Rose looked up at the woman. Her wild ringlets sprung out in every direction around her face, her wide, bright eyes on Rose. A smiled played on her lips and she held out a black notebook.

"That's not mine," Rose told her. "I wasn't carrying anything."

"It's yours." She held it out of Rose again. "I promise."

Rose's eyebrows knit together in confusion. She felt like she knew this woman. "Have we met?"

But the woman shook her head. "Not physically, no."

"Who are you?"

"My name is River Song. We have a mutual friend." She held out the notebook again. "Please, take it. It's yours. Everything is going to change soon, but you just have to hang onto this and _remember_."

Hesitantly, Rose took the small book from the strange woman. "What do you _mea _everything is going to change?"

She held up a worn, blue book. "Once I get _this _book to someone, things will go back to normal."

"Are you insane?" Rose questioned, prepared to run.

River laughed. "Maybe. Has anything weird happen—notice anything disappear?" She noticed Rose bite her lip and continued, knowing she was going in the right direction. "Have you felt like you've forgotten something?"

"Who _are_ you, River Song?" Rose demanded.

She looked down at a bulky-looking watch on her wrist. "Just a quick visitor. I actually shouldn't be able to be here—this old thing is going to short out the moment I return. I'll just have to get my old one back from the Doctor when I get back."

And with a wave, the strange woman disappeared.


	8. Pandorica Part 8

"I'm going insane," Rose concluded after her third loop around the city. "I'm going bloody mad and I can't figure out _why_!" She looked down at the book in her hands. The pages were all blank. Worn—like they'd been flipped through hundreds of times—but blank.

That strange lady said everything would change—well, why hadn't it? Maybe because nothing was happening other than the deterioration of her own mind. Her cell phone let out a chime—a message from her mother asking if she'd be home for dinner.

She flipped through her older messages and came across messages from a contact in her phone named The Doctor. Doctor who? Something in her mind fit together—the woman, River, mentioned someone called the Doctor.

"The Doctor," she muttered out loud, turning and walking towards home. Why did that word fit so perfectly in her mouth, slide so easily off her tongue, feel so good to say? She walked up to a building in the city but froze as she started up a set of stairs. Wait. This wasn't her apartment building.

So why did she end up here?

"Insanity," she grumbled, turning on her heel and fleeing in mild embarrassment. When she did eventually end up at her flat, she tossed her jacket over a chair on her way to find her mother. "Mum?"

"In the kitchen," she called. "I sent you a text message. Wasn't sure if you were gonna be long or not.

"Mum," Rose began, leaning on the counter next to her mother, watching her work. "Do you know anyone named the Doctor?"

"The Doctor?" Jackie stopped cutting the vegetable in front of her and tossed a glance at her daughter. "Isn't that the name of the bloke you brought around—the one with the gelled up hair?" she asked. "Strange name, though. Doctor what?"

"Mum," Rose started slowly. "I have no idea who you're talking about. What bloke?"

"What are you going on about?" she asked her daughter. "What's gotten you so worked up?"

"There's a guy I can't remember. This jacket just disappeared in my hand this morning, a strange woman gave me this—" she held up the black notebook. "And there are messages on my phone from someone named the Doctor."

"What are the messages about?" her mother asked.

Rose just looked at her like she'd just asked the most absurd question in the world. "What difference does it make what they're about?"

"I'm just curious," Jackie shrugged, setting plates out on the table. "It may help you remember whoever it is."

"Remember," Rose snapped. "Remember _what_? Oh—I'm forgetting something important and it's so incredibly _infuriating_." Rose stopped her tirade when she counted the plates on the table. "Mum, why are there four plates?"

"Me, you, Pete, and Tony," she responded automatically, then went rigid.

"Mom," Rose whispered. "Who are Pete and Tony?" The knife clanged to the counter. "Mum?"

"How could I have forgotten?" the elder woman murmured, horrified.

"Forgotten what?" Rose walked over to her mother and turned her around. "Mum?"

Her eyes met Rose's. "Pete. My husband Pete."

"Mum, Dad's been gone a long time."

She just shook her head. "And my baby, Tony. Your little brother."

"I don't have a brother," Rose argued. "Mum, you're scaring me."

Jackie just held her daughter by the shoulders. "Remember, Rose. The Doctor. Remember him," she urged.

Rose felt a pinch behind her eyes and the tears coming. "I _can't_, Mum. I can't remember who he is."

"Something is wrong, Rose. We haven't lived _here _in _years_." She took a breath and smoothed out her daughter's hair. "Our whole lives changed the day you met the Doctor."

"But I don't know who he is," she cried.

"Just, _try_. We need to figure out what's wrong."

"That's what I've been trying to do all day—"

"Rose, we haven't lived in this universe in years. We got trapped on the other side of some….thing. I don't understand it all, but _you did_." She noticed the notebook Rose was holding. "Where did you get that?"

"A woman named River gave it to me while I was out," Rose explained, flipping through the pages. "But it's blank." She looked up at her mother. "She mentioned the Doctor, too."

"This was you're and the Doctor's, Rose! Oh," Jackie groaned, "I wish you'd just remember, already. I never know what to do in these situations—your father was the one who took care of all this _alien _business. I bet _he'd _know what to do."

Rose walked in a daze towards the living room.

"Rose, the messages on your phone from the Doctor, what do they say?" Jackie asked, following her. Rose fell back into the couch and Jackie perched herself on the table in front of her. "You _need _to remember. I feel like a damn fool—you probably think I'm insane!" Rose absently pulled out her phone and handed it off to her mother. "Everything of the Doctor's has disappeared—his jacket, the book—so why haven't the messages?"

Rose looked up when her mother silently thrust the phone in front of her face. "What is it?" she took the phone back and read what was on the screen.

If you've forgotten him, go to Torchwood. He's in a medical bed, waiting for you. -Eleven

"Who is Eleven? What does that even mean?"

Jackie just jerked her daughter off the couch. "Oh, this is so frustrating! It's such a long story, too. We don't have time for this! Rose—we live in a parallel universe. There are zeppelins in the sky. I live with your father and little brother, Tony, in a huge house on the west side of town. _You _live with the half-human half time-thing in an apartment in the middle of the city. And if you don't get your butt to Torchwood, I'm going to kick it there myself!"

"It's almost dark—Torchwood won't be open." But her mom was like a stone, unwilling to budge. She hadn't seen her mother this adamant about much of anything. A resolve began to build up in her mind. "Alright, Mum. If you think we'll find our answers at Torchwood, let's go."

They walked in silence in the growing darkness for a while until Jackie let out a small laugh. "It's weird," she mentioned.

"What is?"

"I know about all this alien stuff, and you don't," Jackie said, a slight smugness overcoming her. "It's just odd."

"I don't like it," Rose muttered.

"Yeah, well," Jackie sighed. "When you remember the Doctor—you'll like that a lot."

They headed into the lobby of Torchwood and Jackie fearlessly walked up to the front desk like she'd done it a million times. "I'm looking for Doctor Amell, please," she told the man behind the desk. He gave her a brisk nod and pick up his phone. "Thanks."

Jackie led them away from the desk so that the man was out of earshot. "Who is Dr. Amell?" Rose asked.

"She was one of the doctors helping you with the Doctor when he was hurt. He kept having these weird dreams—he didn't wake up from one of them. You called Pete and they brought him here. He's part alien so it's not like they could've taken him to a hospital."

"Of course not," Rose muttered sarcastically under her breath as a female in a white coat approached them.

Jackie grinned and met the doctor half way. "Hello, Dr. Amell."

"I'm sorry," she said, confused, "do I know you?"

"My name is Jackie Tyler, and this is my daughter Rose," Jackie explained. "We were looking for a friend of my daughter's. He's tall, skinny, wild hair—"

"We have a man in our medical wing," she said in a hurry. "No one knows who he is or how he got there."

"Can we see him?" Rose asked.

"I don't see why not. Follow me." She led the way past the front desk, giving the man a nod to unlock the door so that they could proceed into the heart of Torchwood.

Rose felt at home in these halls. Like she knew the way even with her eyes shut. A familiar tug in her mind caused her to quicken her pace, her steps taking her ahead of Dr. Amell and towards the most familiar room she knew in this entire building.

How could she forget? How could she forget _this_? She could feel the static in the air as she opening the door, the world changing around her. She could hear the distant roar of zeppelins in the sky, the footsteps of the night shift filling the hallways. A tall and lanky man with _great _hair sat slouched in a chair across the room with his legs crossed, glasses on his face. He was watching her over the rims of his glasses, chin resting in a hand.

"How could I forget _you_?" she breathed. He simply grinned at her, eyebrow raised in amusement.


	9. Pandorica Part 9

**Last Chapter of the Pandorica Arc. Next is the Silence Arc. Or the River Arc. Not sure what I'm gonna call it.**

Rose took off across the room and the Doctor jumped up from the chair and met her half way, arms closing tightly around her. Rose pulled back, gripped his lapels, and pulled him down to her. Her lips pressed against his and she pulled him to her, as close as she could get.

Pete ran in then, panting heavily. "I thought he was hurt," he managed between gulps of air.

The Doctor and Rose jerked apart. "That's right," she said, unbuttoning a few of the buttons on his shirt. But there was no burn wound. "Where did it go? I saw it before! You were bleeding!"

"A lot has happened," the Doctor said with a grin.

"I think we got that much," Jackie muttered, her hand finding Pete's.

"Like what? What happened? Why did I forget who you were?" Rose demanded.

"_I _regenerated, met a girl with a crack in her wall, which led us inevitably to the _cause _of the crack in her wall—_my _TARDIS exploding," a new voice explained. Everyone's heads jerked to the source. A skinny man in a tweed jacket and a bowtie stood before them. "Hello!"

"Who're you?" Jackie demanded in confusion.

"Don't you ever listen?" he asked. "I'm the Doctor! The Eleventh! New face, same person."

"Are you really him? But—how?" Rose gasped. "I mean, how can you be _here _talking to me? I thought you said it would be impossible."

"I'm not really here. I'm on my TARDIS. River is helping me project this time—no burning suns. I was the one who sent you the message on your phone. River told me you had forgotten everything. But I came because _you—_" he gestured with his sonic screwdriver to the other Doctor. "You never told me how it was you were in my head."

Rose's Doctor kept an arm around her and grinned. "Thought you said it didn't matter," he said simply, free hand tugging at his ear.

The Doctor's eyes darted around the room and he rocked back on his heels. "I was wrong." The tenth just grinned.

After a pause, the Tenth Doctor broke away from Rose and began to walk around the room. "It's simple, really—I'm surprised you haven't come to the same conclusion yourself—I should be a little insulted, actually, since I believe his means you haven't thought about _my _predicament much at _all_."

"I was a little preoccupied, if you hadn't noticed," he muttered back. "Being trapped in the Pandorica and all."

"Well think about it now, then!" he gestured enthusiastically, stepping away from Rose. "I'm in a parallel universe to yours. Travel between the two universes _should _be impossible now—"

"Because there aren't any Time Lords left," the newer Doctor began to pace, head down, hands by his side. He stopped suddenly and jerked his eyes up at the other Doctor. "You don't mean River? River's not a Time Lord she's a human with—"

"Even if River was a Time Lord, that wouldn't explain why _my _mind is being projected across the void," he explained and watched as realization lit up the Doctor's face.

"You're part Time Lord, which would make travel from one universe to the other an easy, one-way trip. We now have a Time Lord in each universe. And since you're part human you're not as strong as I am," the Eleventh announced. "Your mind is being drawn to mine."

"Alright," Rose began, the shock of seeing another regenerated Doctor having worn off. "So how do we stop it—I mean, last time you got hurt he started bleeding."

The Eleventh Doctor's image began to flicker. He looked down at himself then over at the wall. "What's wrong?" He paused and then turned back to them. "Seems my time has run out. But just know this—" He looked directly at Rose. "I will figure something out—I won't let anything happen to him." He looked up at his duplicate. "Sleep well." And then he was gone.

"So we're back at square one," Pete sighed.

"Not exactly," Rose said. "Now the other Doctor knows what's going on over here."

"Well, I've had enough for one day. Nothing good will come of just standing around here," Jackie announced. "I wanna go home—feel like I haven't seen Tony in _ages_." Pete chuckled and took his wife by the shoulders, steering her out of the room.

"Allons-y," the Doctor murmured to Rose, coming back to her side. Rose took the Doctor's hand and led them down the hall after her parents. He dropped her hand and pulled her closer to him.

"So who is this River Song?" Rose asked with a smile.

He looked down at her with amusement on his face. "You really want to know?"

"Yeah."

"You're sure?"

She grinned and smacked him. "Yeah, just tell me. Who is she?"

"She's the Doctor's wife," he told her.

She jumped back, jaw dropped. The Doctor stuck his hands in the pockets of his pants and watched her with amusement. "No way! His wife? How do you know?"

"When he was traveling with Donna, they met her in a library. She provided a very convincing argument to prove she was his future wife," he explained, taking her hand as they exited the building and stepped out into the cold night air. "You jealous?"

"Nah, good on him," she grinned at her Doctor. "I got you, and that's all I need."

"I figured you'd get all huffy and jealous," he teased, swinging their arms.

"I do not get huffy—and I'm not jealous!" Rose exclaimed, pushing him as they walked down the sidewalk.

"Not even a little?"

"Nope," she replied stubbornly.

"Because if you were—" Rose's hand pulled one of his out of his pocket and she jerked him towards her, wrapping her around his waist.

"Worried?"

"Nah."

"He's like a different person, now. I don't really know who he is anymore," she explained. "Besides, I'm kinda in love with your hair."

"My hair?" He looked shocked and she couldn't help letting out a laugh.

"Let's go out to eat somewhere," she suggested, pulling out her phone to look at the time.

"Why don't you just go eat with my hair? I'll meet you back at the apartment," he grumbled.

"Because I'm kinda fond of the person growing it." She stuck her tongue out at him and he smiled, pecking her on the cheek.

"Should we go for chips, then?" He pulled her in a different direction from where her parents were heading.

"That was our first date," Rose mused, following his change in direction.

"It was," he agreed.

He knew that whatever was going on was far from over. So he might as well enjoy himself with Rose as long as he could because whatever the other Doctor was going through wasn't done yet. He knew from his memories of the Doctor, they never were.


	10. The Silence Part 1

**GAIZ I AM SO DISTRAUGHT I'M NOT AT COMIC CON RIGHT NOW YOU GUYS DON'T EVEN KNOW. I live on the opposite coast and it's killing me….**

The Doctor pushed his glasses up his nose and squinted at the computer screen in the dark of the kitchen. He leaned over and scribbled some notes onto one of the hundreds of sheets spread across the kitchen table. He hadn't been sleeping well. He'd been staying up long after Rose had gone to bed, and he knew he wouldn't get away with it for long.

He'd been sleeping better. The last six months had been relatively good. Until recently, he'd been sleeping almost like a normal human—he was still trying to kick the old Time Lord habit of avoiding sleep.

"What are you still doing up?"

The Doctor started at the sound which seemed to echo loudly in the late night quiet of the kitchen. He glanced around at the table covered in his handwriting—some English, some in languages Rose couldn't identify.

"Work," he replied simply. "What are you doing up?"

She stared at him, sitting in his pajamas, hair messier than usual, glasses on his face. "Are you avoiding sleep?" she asked him finally.

Realization crossed his face and he rushed the answer. "No, no, not this time." He turned back to his work as she took a seat in the chair next to him. "I decided I needed something in this world."

"What do you mean?" Rose asked carefully, picking up a few of the foreign papers and wishing the TARDIS could translate them for her. She really couldn't wait until he got the thing working. She missed it.

"I can't just sit here and work on the TARDIS," he admitted quietly. "I need to earn my keep. I can't expect you to support me for the rest of my human life."

She took a breath and crossed her legs beneath her in the chair. "I don't mind it, but I understand." She smiled and leaned to look at the screen. "So what are you doing then, to keep busy?"

"I'm writing a book," he murmured, moving the laptop to face her and scrolling to the top of a ridiculously long word document.

"Oh? What about?" she asked, clearly somewhat impressed. I mean, the Doctor was over 900 years old when they met—who's to say he hadn't written books before. "Is this the first book you've written?"

"The first science fiction book about a lonely time traveler," he grinned, avoiding her question completely in a way that he'd probably honed a hundred years ago.

"Sounds like an autobiography," Rose noted.

"Only if you think about it too much," he replied, pulling the computer back.

"Can I read it?"

"Can you read?"

"Do you want dinner any time this week?"

"I can cook!" he defended.

"Hardly," she scoffed.

"I survived by myself on the TARDIS, I'll have you know."

"I'll bet anything she cooked _for _you." Rose yawned and stood up. "Anyways, it's too early in the morning for your sass. She began to walk past him towards the sink for water before returning to bed, but the Doctor had other ideas and pulled her down into his lap.

"Is it too early for this?" he murmured, kissing her cheek, her jaw, her neck.

She couldn't help the giggle that escaped her lips. "It's never too early for—_what is that_?" He jerked back and followed her line of site to the kitchen table. The page of notes he'd been writing was now full of someone else's handwriting. The page was full of the same sentence. "The Doctor is dying. Please, please, please help."

Rose hopped off his lap and flicked on the lights as he stood up and frantically flipped through all of his notes, every page bearing the same words.

"Is this some kind of sick joke?" she whispered, voice shaking. The Doctor gripped the edges of the table, completely silent. "Doctor?"

"Get dressed," he replied, eerily calm. He quickly began to stack the papers, shoving them inside folders and notebooks. She knew the look on his face—the one where he was so upset, but managed to maintain and somewhat calm expression.

"Why?"

"There's no use telling you to go back to bed," she threw her smile that didn't touch his eyes and shoved everything into a battered laptop bag.

"What's going on?" Rose asked more forcefully. The Doctor sat all of his things on the table and took her by the shoulders.

"The Doctor is dying and I need to find out who sent that message. Whoever did it needs help." He turned away from her and continued to collect his papers off the table.

"Are you feeling ok?" Rose grabbed his arm and pulled him back around to look at his face. She cupped his cheek and noticed how pale he was.

"I've had chest pains for a few hours now," he explained. "I thought it was just some human cold. But now I'm not so sure. Go get dressed unless that's what you want to wear." He gestured to her attire of one of his t-shirts and cotton pajama bottoms.

"Where are we going?"

"We're taking the TARDIS to Torchwood," he said with a grunt, hoisting the heave bag strap over his shoulder and leading her down the hall to their room.

"It's ready to go?" she asked excitedly.

"Not really," he admitted, dropping the bag down on the bed. "But I think I can manage a small trip through space. He threw a pair of jeans and a clean shirt of hers at Rose and then opened their closet dramatically. "Rose Tyler, welcome to the TARDIS 2.0."

"I get to actually go inside now?" she asked with mock enthusiasm as she changed shirts. He'd wanted the TARDIS to be a surprise on the inside, so he'd long ago banned her from going in. She followed him inside and stopped in the doorway. "Oh, my God, it's the same as it was. The outside is different but the inside is exactly the same!"

"This TARDIS's chameleon circuit is working—but I give it a week or two," the Doctor explained, already spinning around the console flipping switches and pressing buttons. "And I was always fond of this desktop. From what I've seen of the new Eleventh Doctor's TARDIS, it's a little too…sharp-edges for me." He paused and gave her a look of excitement she hadn't seen in a long time. "Wanna learn how to fly this some time?"

The TARDIS gave a jerk and he twisted a knob, which seemed to only make it worse.

"Maybe you should learn first," she breathed, picking herself up off the floor when it finally stopped.

"Right," he grunted, jumping up and checking the monitor briefly. "Here we are! Torchwood!" He grabbed his laptop bag and stormed out the door, Rose right behind him.

The room they'd landed in was small, but Rose recognized it immediately. She took charge of the freaked out night shift and handed out orders like she'd been trained to do. She assembled a small team out of the people on duty and briefly explained the vague situation.

"Alright!" the Doctor announced loudly, pacing around the room in front of everyone. "I need every scan of the void you lot have from the past 8 months, six of the longest power cables you can find, three surge protectors, a table I can fit all of this on—" He dropped the bag onto the floor in front of the team and pointed at Rose— "And a glass of water she never got at home. Everything else I need is in the TARDIS."

Everyone just stood there staring before Rose took charge and started assigning things to people, repeating what the Doctor had requested but slower.


	11. The Silence Part 2

Everyone was a flurry of movement around them as the Doctor pulled out pages, one by one, from the laptop back and stacked them neatly on the table. Perplexed, he made several different stacks before pulling out his laptop and opening that, too, only to find that everything he'd written had been changed to words of the same message.

"I don't understand," he muttered before grabbing one end of a chord and disappearing into the TARDIS with it. When he didn't return immediately, Rose followed in after him. The inside of the TARDIS was infinitely quieter—all the Torchwood members had been banned from stepping foot inside unless otherwise specifically asked to.

She found the Doctor leaning over the console in front of the monitor, one hand on a lever, the other on his chest. Something was off, she knew immediately, and was at his side just as fast.

"It's getting worse," he choked out before she could even ask. "I feel like I've been bloody _shot_."

"Maybe you should check with Dr. Amell," Rose suggested, pushing him away from the console and back into the chair. She began to strip off his jacket and he gave her a questioning look. "Oh, shut up. I'm looking to see if you're hurt." She gained a small relief upon seeing just smooth skin.

"It's all internal, I can feel it."

"Doctor, you should really let Dr. Amell look at you," she begged. "Please."

"I usually know what's wrong when something like this happens," he grumbled, standing up straight and wincing. He rolled his neck and stretched out his back. "But I honestly have no idea." He picked up the cable and leaned down the affix it to the TARDIS. "I've got too much to figure out, Rose, I can't be strapped into a bed."

"Are you still sore about that?" Rose groaned. "_Please _Doctor—just let her give you a look over."

He stood up and rushed out of the TARDIS, back to his laptop. "I don't have time." Rose stomped to the other side of the desk he was working at and snapped his laptop shut. He glanced at her over the tops of his glasses. "Rose, you don't understand what's happening."

"No, Doctor, _you _don't understand," Rose snapped as quietly as she could. "I've lost you so many times now I don't know what I would do if I had to go through it one more time. These dreams were starting to cause serious physical harm." She paused and her jaw worked, her mind trying to find the right words. "I feel like I'm watching myself—about to lose you all over again and I can't just sit down and watch."

The Doctor's face softened. Of course he'd thought about what she'd gone through while he was comatose. He ran a hand through his hair and slowly walked around the table to her side. "Rose," he began quietly. "Rose, I'm sorry. But I'm doing this so that you don't lose me. I'll let Dr. Amell take a look but it won't do us any good." He held up the papers. "These are acting like psychic paper. All of it is up here." He tapped his temple.

Rose perked up a little and he could almost see the light bulb moment she was having. "I'll go get Dr. Amell," she said with a smile. "I have an idea."

"What?" he called after her, wondering what connections her mind had made. He shook his head, knowing it was no use—she had a tendency to wander off and he'd long since known there wasn't a single thing he could do about it.

"Alright!" He jumped into action, ignoring the growing pain in his chest. "I'm going to need a powerful computer. And where are those scans?"

A young male pulled a table up next to the one with his papers and unrolled a large sheet. "These are all the scans from the last year that we have archived. It includes everything leading up to about ten minutes ago when we called the query in our systems."

"Brilliant," the Doctor breathed, glancing over the scans. "Here," he pointed to a spot on the graph towards the right side of the page. "That's when the Doctor dropped us off and sealed the rip." His finger followed the curve of the line. "Hold on a second. This never reaches zero."

"What's that mean?" the young man asked.

"It _means _that there's still communication between the two universes." He looked up at the Torchwood employee, wondering why he was explaining to him. "There should be no communication between the two worlds at all." Rose walked back into the room, Dr. Amell in tow, as he was tracing the lines of activity while he was comatose.

"Doctor—"

"In a moment," he interrupted her. "Come here and look at this."

Rose sighed but stepped up to the table. "What is this?"

"This is the graph of activity in the voice for the past year." He started back at the beginning of the activity. "This is when the other Doctor left us here." He moved his finger down the line. "This is all the attacks from the dreams." He moved his finger to about 6 months ago, where it shot up to nearly the top of the page. "I'm guessing this is when he made a visit. Then it drops off for approximately six months." He moved his finger down closer to the bottom of the page. "But it never really reaches zero."

"And that means the communication is constant—right?" Rose guessed.

"Right," he said with a grin. "But here, an hour ago, it shot up to near where it did during the Doctor's visit."

"So someone wasted a lot of energy just to get in touch with you."

The Doctor paused, stretching his neck, and glanced over at Dr. Amell. "You—you're really gonna make me…"

Rose's face clouded in confusion for a second before her face brightened. "Yes, right! Yes, I am. Doctor—it's like you said. Everything is in your head!"

"What do you mean?"

"Doctor," Dr. Amell started, coming to stand next to Rose. "Just from what Rose has told me and from watching you just now, you're showing common signs of a heart attack." She pulled the stethoscope off her next and gestured towards the Doctor. "Can I?" Rose motioned for the doctor to proceed without waiting for permission from the Doctor.

"So I'm about to have a heart attack then," the Doctor questioned as Dr. Amell moved the end of the stethoscope across his chest.

"Nope—perfectly steady, strong heartbeat, if not a little quick," she announced.

"It's like you said," Rose smirked. "It's all in your head."

"So I'm imagining it—nooo," he pulled away from them and began to pace. "It's a projection, like the dreams. I must be feeling what _he's _feeling. I'm trying to trace the message back to the source but the best way to do that would be to sleep—let my mind project through the void."

"So what are we gonna do?" Rose asked.

"You're gonna get everyone to finish what I started—help them connect the TARDIS to my laptop and their scanners for the void. The TARDIS'll do the rest." He turned to Dr. Amell. "You're gonna come with me to the med room. Rose can join us when we're done."

"What are you gonna do?" Rose asked, suspicious.

"I'm gonna go take a nap," he told her with a cheeky grin.

"Alright, everything with the TARDIS is set up," Rose breathed, jogging into the room. The Doctor was sitting on the edge of the bed as Dr. Amell attached wires to his temples. He had an IV in his arm and the steady beeping in the room told her he was also hooked up to a heart monitor.

"Perfect timing!"the Doctor grinned. Dr. Amell stepped away and he leaned back on the bed, scooting over to the far side, patting the space next to him. Rose kicked off her shoes and joined him, leaning into his side.

"I'm going to give you a sedative, just to help you get to sleep," Dr. Amell warned him, standing next to the IV. The Doctor only nodded.

"So you're going to see if you dream about what's going on?" Rose asked quietly.

"I'm going to see if I can voluntarily project my mind into his. It might help me not only learn what's going on, but learn to disconnect myself from him," he explained in a hushed murmur. She could see him losing consciousness; she just hoped he would wake up from it.

"I love you," she whispered to him, just in case.

"I love you, too," he managed, eyes falling shut.


	12. The Silence Part 3

"_Rory?" the Doctor started. "Is everyone cross with me for some reason?"_

_Rory looked up at him, fear clouding his face. "I'll find out," he said stiffly, walking off towards the steps._

_The Doctor stood, hunched over the controls, mind racing._

'_Can you hear me?'_

_The Doctor walked slowly to a lever and flipped it up. He backtracked a few steps and twisted a knob. A breath passed his lips harshly as he heard whispering beneath his feet. He knew they were all taking about him—he wasn't _that _daft. _

'_Nothing? Not a word getting across to you?'_

_The Doctor was getting frustrated. He stormed across the room and slid to the floor so that he could look over the edge at his companions. "I'm being incredibly clever up here and there's no one to stand around looking impressed—what's the point in having you all?" he snapped before flipping back upright and returning to the console._

'_How can I get through to you? I'm practically shouting and you can't hear me. How could you hear me before?'_

"_Time isn't a straight line—it's all bumpy-wumpy," the Doctor announced as they all returned to the console. He made his way slowly around the controls. "There's loads of boring stuff—like Sundays and Tuesdays and Thursday afternoons." He jerked a lever up. "But now and then there are Saturdays. Big, temporal tipping points when anything is possible." He swung close to River, flicking her on the nose. "The TARDIS can't resist them—like a moth to a flame. She likes a party so I give her 1969 and NASA because that's "space" in the 60s."_

_The Doctor made note of his companions' lack of voices. Something was definitely up. Something was amiss with them and he couldn't pinpoint it. And he definitely, _definitely_ did not like it. He never enjoyed being in the dark._

'_My mental projection must be too weak. You can't pick my thoughts up like I can pick up yours. The Pandorica must have amplified my thought signature which is why we could communicate in there.'_

_He spun to the monitor. "And Canton Everett Delaware the third and this is where she's pointing."He poked something on the display and stood back. _

"_Washington DC, April 8, 1969," Amy read for him. "So why haven't we landed?"_

"_Because that's not where we're going," he declared._

"_Oh. Then where are we going?" Rory asked._

"_Home!" the Doctor grinned. "Well, you two are. And you, Dr. Song, back to prison." He turned away from them and headed for the other side of the console. "And me? I'm late for a biplane lesson in 1911." He flipped all the levers back as he walked away from his friends. "Or it could be knitting—knitting or biplanes. One or the other." His tone had taken a negative turn and he fell back into the chair, crossing his legs and pinching the bridge of his nose, trying to remind himself not to lash out at the people he cared for._

'_What is going on _here_? Why are you acting like this towards _them_?"_

_Slowly the others walked around to him, not sure what the Doctor was doing, what had happened._

"_What?" he snapped, dropping his hand down to his lap. "A mysterious summons—you think I'm just going to go?" He looked up at River. "Who sent those messages?" At Amy. "I know you know, I can see it in your faces." Rory. "Don't play games with me. Don't ever, ever think you're capable of that."_

"You're _going to have to trust _us_, this time," River said._

"_Trust you? Sure." He stood up and got nose to nose with the mysterious woman before him. "But first of all, Dr. Song. Just one thing. Who are you?"_

'_Why are you asking questions to which you already know the answer?'_

"_I'm guessing someone from my future, but who?" No one answered. "Okay," he sighed. "Why are you in prison? Who did you kill?" His voice dropped low. "Now I love a bad girl, me, but trust _you_? Seriously?"_

"_Trust me."_

"_Okay." The Doctor turned towards Amy. _

"_You have to do this, and you can't ask why," she explained._

"_Are you being threatened?" he asked her, disgusted by the very thought. "Is someone making you say that?"_

"_No."_

"_Then swear to me," he demanded, stepping back. "Swear to me on something that matters."_

"_Fish fingers and custard," Amy said after a moment, a smile playing on her lips._

'_What the _hell _is happening here?'_

_The Doctor contemplated this for a second. "My life in your hands, Amelia Pond," he murmured before turning on his heel, the enthusiastic Doctor returning._

"_Thank you," River said to a shaking Amy._

"_So! Who is Canton Everett Delaware II?" the Doctor asked._

"_Ex-FBI," River offered, coming to stand next to him in front of the monitor._

"_Why?"_

"_Six weeks after he left the bureau, the president contacted him for a private meeting," River elaborated. _

"_Okay!" The Doctor jumped into action, heading for the specific pieces of the controls he needed. "Since I don't know what I'm getting myself into, this time for once, I'm being discreet. Putting the engines on 'silent.'" He flipped a switch, a loud hum thrumming through the air._

_River rolled her eyes and followed after him, adjusting what needed to be done._

"_Did you do something?" he asked her when the noise stopped. _

"_No," she said, feigning innocence. "Just…watching."_

"_Putting the outer shield on 'invisible.' Haven't done this in a while—big drain on the power." _

"_You can turn the TARDIS invisible?" Rory asked in disbelief._

_A knob flicked, blinding lights illuminating the room. Another adjustment from River and they shut off. "Very nearly," she muttered._

"_Did you touch something?" he demanded._

_She made a face and shook her head slowly. "Just admiring your skills, sweetie."_

"_Good. You might learn something." He turned to the monitor and smacked it a few times. "Now I can't check the scanner—it doesn't work when we're cloaked." He turned to the door and took off. "Just give us a moment."_

'_Agh! How can I get you to hear me? How can I amplify myself through the void enough? Think, think, think!'_

_The Doctor stopped and spun on his heels when he heard his friends following him. "You lot, wait a moment. We're in the middle of the most powerful city in the most power country on the planet. Let's take it slow."_

'_Doctor!'_

_He stepped out into the room and halted when he saw the two people before him. He was standing in the middle of the oval office, unnoticed. A little girl's voice was playing from a recording. The Doctor, out of habit, took notes on what she was saying._

_The tape stopped and the men chatted shortly before they both froze._

'_DOCTOR!'_

_The Doctor's head snapped up at the call of his name, but he vaguely registered that neither of the men in the room had called him. It was purely in his head. Which could only have been one person._

"_Oh," the Doctor grinned at the men gaping at him, backing towards the TARDIS. "Bad moment? I'll just be off then."_

'_DOCTOR!' the voice called again just as his face hit the invisible box._

The Doctor sucked in a breath and his eyes snapped open, hand flying to his cheek. "It always does that when it's cloaked," he groaned. He looked next to him, Rose staring at him over the top of her book. She'd moved from the bed to a chair.

"Sleep well?" she asked with a grin.

"Up until the end there, yeah," he muttered. He looked towards the window. Daylight filled the room. "How long was I out?"

"Maybe five hours, not long." She closed her book and set it on a small table. "Find out anything useful?"

He was silent a few seconds. Swinging his legs over the side of the bed, he glanced at the readings on the heart machine next to him. "A lot more than I thought I did, actually."

"Care to share?"

The Doctor jumped out of bed, stumbling shortly as his head adjusted to being vertical. He raced across the room and grabbed the papers he needed from the readings Dr. Amell gathered while he was dreaming. He held them up, laughing giddily. Wordlessly, he dashed out of the room, not even stopping to put his trainers back on.

She found him in the doorway where the TARDIS was parked. "Different staff."

"Night shift left at about eight. I've already explained to these guys what's going on and in my opinion they've been more help," Rose explained from over his shoulder.

He shook his head and dashed into the room. "Right!" He looked over the papers of notes, all his handwriting had returned to normal. "Ok, so the message has disappeared. When did that happen?"

"Shortly after you left," someone told him as they passed by.

"Good!" He spread the papers out across the graph from the void readings. "Someone get me scans of the void from yesterday until as recent as you can."

"So what have you found?" Rose murmured, her shoulders brushing his as they leaned over the desk.

"Well, have a look at this." He pointed to the scans from the void. "This is when I was talking to the Doctor while he was in the Pandorica. It's high level of activity, it's constant. Now this—" he slid a sheet from the heart monitor and something from another scanner closer to them. "This is my heart rate during the dream. Pretty calm, normal."

"But here," she pointed to a section where it looked like he was flat lining. "What's that?" It was short, but long enough to cause a disturbance in the chart.

"That's the end of my dream where I was able to connect with him for a second or two." He pushed the sheet out of the way. "This is the scan that we need though. I might be part human—only one heart, but I've still got the Time Lord brain."

"These readings look identical to the scans from the void," she noted, point to a rise in activity on both charts "So that's the same point where you made contact, yeah?"

"Exactly!" He pecked her on the cheek, proud she was keeping up—even coming to the same conclusions on her own.

"Okay, so what made that moment so significant?"

His eyebrows jumped and he stood up straight, noting the painlessness of the movement. "He wasn't able to hear me at all until he was trapped in the Pandorica. The Pandorica was working as some kind of amplifier. I'm not exactly sure what caused the spike this time."

"Well, Doctor?" she prompted him, leaning against the table and crossing her arms.

"Well what?"

"What are your theories?"

"I don't have anything concrete yet, not until I can see those scans from the void and Dr. Amell. Oh, and what has the TARDIS found out about that message?" The Doctor grinned and dashed off towards the TARDIS.


	13. The Silence Part 4

**I HAVE A PLACE I WANT THIS TO GO BUT IT'S NOT GETTING THERE FAST ENOUGH AND I HATE THAT BUT EXPECT RAPID UPDATES mainly because tomorrow is my day off so between packing and sleeping I'll be writing. Also because I have such a good idea for something that's been exciting me all night. I should get to start it or at last touch base with it in the next chapter.**

Rose followed the Doctor into the TARDIS where he was tapping away at the keyboard below the monitor. "What'd she find?"

"Welll," he muttered, sliding his glasses onto his face and squinting at the screen. "It _says_it's coming from a distress beacon on the other side of the void. It takes generally no effort to project across the void, but to get the signal to _one _specific person, oh, well, that'd take some power." He leaned back and touched a few more keys. "The interesting part is this. It's from River Song."

"So River is the one sending the messages—is the Doctor really dying?" Rose asked quietly.

The Doctor just shrugged but she could see it was bothering him. "Amy, Rory, and River were in the TARDIS with him when I joined them. He was getting irritated. They're hiding something from him—but what?" The Doctor began to pace, hands running through his hair.

Rose cautiously stepped up to the monitor and tapped a few keys of her own. "Doctor," she said, confused by the date stamp on the transmission displayed on the screen. She cast a glance over her shoulder to see him deep in thought, pacing a hole in the floor. "Doctor. Come look at this."

"What?" he perked up and rejoined her.

"The date and time for the whole transmission is the same. But it lasted a lot longer than one second," she told him, pointing to the date and time. "April 22, 5:02 PM."

"Ah," he breathed. The Doctor grabbed Rose and kissed her on the forehead. "You're brilliant!" She laughed at his enthusiasm as he began running around the TARDIS, collecting metal pieces and wires.

"What are you doing, Doctor?"

He paused long enough to throw a grin at her and say, "I'm building a beacon of my own, of course!" She just grinned and skipped after him to help.

They had been sitting in the TARDIS for a good while building a beacon strong enough to get through the void and to one person when Pete stepped into the room and just stared at them.

"How long have you two been here?" he demanded.

"I've lost track of time, to be honest," the Doctor replied, not even looking up from the metal contraption in front of him.

"Well, it's almost six in the afternoon," he informed them. "What has even been going on?" He walked over and looked down at what they were building, then at the wires running out of the TARDIS and into Torchwood. "What is that and what do you have hooked up to my computers?"

"It's a long story," the Doctor muttered, distracted.

"We got a message at home," Rose explained where the Doctor had failed. "Said 'the Doctor is dying, please help.' So we came here to trace the source. We ran some…tests and the Doctor had another dream about the other universe." She gestured to the beacon. "Now we're building this to return a signal."

"We're actually done with your computers, thanks for the loan," the Doctor added.

Pete looked around at the interior, not even surprised at this point. "You built a TARDIS?"

"Grew," the Doctor corrected, finally looking away from his project. "TARDIS's are grown, not built. The other Doctor gave me a piece of TARDIS coral on Bad Wolf Bay about a year ago."

"Well, I really think you shouldn't park your TARDIS in the middle of the analysis room of Torchwood, if you don't mind," Pete told them. "Staff members are starting to ask questions they don't need to know the answers to and frankly I really don't want Torchwood to feel like they have to…confiscate—impound it."

Rose stood and offered her hand out to the Doctor. "Why don't we pack up and take it home, for now," Rose suggested, helping him off the floor. "We got all the readings we need from Torchwood. Let's go get dinner and head home."

"Jackie's making alfredo-something tonight if you'd like to join us. I know Tony'd be happy to see you both," Pete offered as he walked towards the door. "I was just about to head home myself."

"Right," Rose smiled. "We'll be there in a bit."

Pete nodded and walked off. A silence fell between the two of them for a moment.

"Do we have to?" the Doctor asked, making a face. "Your mother's cooking—"

"Is fine. Quit being a baby. Let's unhook all this and take the TARDIS back to the apartment." She grabbed his hand and led him back out into Torchwood where they disassembled all their equipment.

The Doctor stood over his papers, trying to sort them all back out now that he could read the actual notes. He'd tried to place them into separate stacks based on where he remembered each page having been in the kitchen and then how he'd stacked them in the laptop bag. He'd gotten them close, but they were still a bit unorganized.

While he'd been staying up late lately, writing his book, he figured that tonight he ought to try and get some sleep. He felt closer to the answer now—the answer to the question that started all of this. How could he disconnect himself from the Doctor in the other universe? He only had one life now, and he wanted to spend it with Rose—not stuck in a dream watching the life he would never have as the Doctor.

"Ready to go then?" a voice snapped him out of his thoughts and her hung his bag over his shoulder and smiled.

"I guess."

"Oh, just think of how happy Tony will be to see you," Rose laughed, nudging him.

"We haven't seen him in—what? Two weeks?" The Doctor thought out loud.

"Three—almost four actually," Rose clarified.

"Well, Allons-y, I suppose!" The Doctor flipped some switches and soon they were back at the apartment, just as they had left it.

The Doctor fell back onto the bed with a sigh. "Your mother wears me out," he sighed.

Rose dropped her jacket onto the desk chair and headed into the bathroom. "Nah, I think that was Tony, actually."

He took off his jeans and rolled onto his stomach. "Either one—I think I'll sleep well tonight, at least."

"Think you'll dream?" Rose came back into the bedroom, dressed in a t-shirt of her own and cotton shorts.

"Too tired," he muttered into his pillow. She found her place beneath the blankets next to him, book in her hand, and he shifted so that he was on his side facing her. "What's your day tomorrow look like?"

"Work," she replied. "You can work on the beacon tomorrow. When do you suppose it'll be done?"

"Just need a coupla more hours," he told her. "Should be done tomorrow."

"And what about your book?"

"Been working on that for a coupla months. Tried to finish last night. Still needs a read through, if you wanna do that." He opened an eye to find her looking down at him.

"You really offering for me to read it?" she asked with skepticism. "Or are you just teasing?"

"I mean, it's about my travels as the Doctor. About, oh, nine hundred years or so ago?"

"Yeah," she said quietly after some consideration. "Yeah, I'd love to give it a read."

"I'll print it out tomorrow," he concluded, eyes falling shut once again. Rose smiled at him and waited until she was sure he'd fallen asleep. She watched him for a few minutes, but he seemed to be sleeping soundly—no signs of obvious distress, at least.


	14. The Silence Part 5

"_Why are you staring at me like that?" he asked her finally as they sat inside the zeppelin on the way back to Cardiff. She'd been watching him out of the corner of her eye for about an hour now. He knew she thought he didn't notice._

"_I'm not staring at you," she muttered, turning her head away._

"_You were."_

"_Was not."_

"_Rose," he sighed. He was sure this had to stop before they reached Cardiff or it would never end. She would continually brush him off, label him as a fake, and their relationship would deteriorate. And he loved her too much to let that happen._

"_Yeah?"_

"_What do I have to do?"_

_She looked at him finally, eyebrows drawn together. "What do you mean?"_

"_What do I have to do to prove it's me? To prove that I'm really the Doctor?" he asked her quietly._

"_You have proven you're you," she told him. She took his hand in hers. "I'm not a hundred percent sure this is real yet. I've spent the last coupla years trying to get back to you and now—now I have you. All to myself for the rest of my life? It seems to good to be true."_

_He leaned over and cupped her cheek with his other hand. "I'm not going anywhere," he pressed with his signature grin. "I'm here, I'm yours, for as long as you want me."_

"_Forever," she said._

He opened his eyes to find he was in the same position he'd fallen asleep in. He was wearing nothing but the shirt he'd worn the day before and his boxers, his jeans in a pile on the floor next to the bed. He heard Rose in the shower and glanced at the clock. If he started now he could have a quick breakfast ready for her before she left.

He poked around the kitchen trying to think of some sort of Earth breakfast he knew how to make. Rose had taught him a few things—he was much more accustomed to having much more alien food available to him.

"Scrambled eggs and toast?" Rose asked when she walked into the kitchen. She peered into the pan he was tossing small pieces of cheese into.

"Got time for breakfast?" he asked as she went to the fridge. "I already made tea."

"I'll always have time for a breakfast I didn't make," she told him, sitting down at the kitchen table. "How'd you sleep last night?"

"Fine," he said, pouring the eggs onto two plates. "It was a memory of my own again. It' happened before."

"I prefer those."

"Strangely, I do, too," he laughed.

"What was it about?" she asked around a mouthful of toast. "Which memory?"

The Doctor swallowed. "The ride home."

Rose simply nodded and a silence grew between them. That hadn't been either of their proudest moments—the amount of doubt she'd harbored that day towards him almost embarrassed her. But still, she thanked the Doctor every day for the gift he'd given her on that beach. A Doctor of her own. An echo of the original, maybe, but it was a Doctor all her own, an unchanging, loving man she could spend the rest of her life with.

"Rose?"

She looked up, snapped out of her thoughts. "What?"

"I asked if you were gonna be late for work," he repeated, giving her a strange look. He picked up her empty plate and stacked it on top of his own. "Are you alright?"

"Yeah, fine," she told him, helping put the dishes in the sink. "It's alright—I will take tardiness for a free breakfast any day of the week." She picked up her things and headed for the door.

He met her there and kissed her on the cheek as he passed by, heading for the TARDIS, she guessed. Rose pulled him back to her and kissed him. He pulled back with an eyebrow raised. "You sure you're fine?"

"Yup," she said, pecking him on the lips again.

"You sure you have to go to work, then?" he asked, pulling her closer to him.

"Yes," she said slowly, "but I will come home, promise. Be home by six." She turned back to the front door. "Be a good boy and down blow anything up."

"Oi!" he called. "What's that supposed to mean?" She let out a laugh as she shut the door and the Doctor ran a hand through his hair, standing there for a second before turning on his heel and running for the TARDIS, excited to finish his beacon. Now that Rose wasn't helping he could add the features that he really didn't think she needed to know about.

_XXX_

Rose came home right as he expected her, six on the dot. He was slouched down on the couch, laptop on his lap. She kicked off her heels by the door and dropped down next to him.

"How's the book going? Did you get everything back—from when it all changed to the message?"

"Yup. Everything's back to normal." He picked up a stack of papers from his other side and handed them to her with a flourish. "Still want to read it? It's the early stuff—you won't be in it for a while."

She took it from him hesitantly, eyes flicking between the pages and him. "How many pages is this?" she asked, astonished. "It's only been a few months since you started writing—how long has it taken you to do this—I mean, I probably shouldn't be surprised by this point."

He laughed. "This one is 223 pages."

"This one?" she gaped.

"I've written four more," he shrugged.

"You've written a total of five books—you've only been here a year! How—are you going to try to get them published? How are you—you're not even a legal citizen, technically," she sputtered, flipping through the first few pages.

"Pete helped me get a publisher who would let me publish the books—Torchwood ran rather invasive background checks on him—I really didn't need to know the boxers or briefs bit—but they've got it all planned out," he explained quickly. "All the money business will be done through your name to avoid government problems—I hope that's alright, Jackie swore you wouldn't mind since I was trying to 'do a bit with my life other than gallivanting around in my box all day while you put the food on the table,' she said."

Rose pursed her lips in thought. "What name are you gonna put on it, then? John Smith? You can't really put 'by The Doctor' can you?"

She gave her a toothy grin. "Spoilers." He stood an pulled her up. "Dinner then I'll show you the beacon?"

"Sounds good to me. What are you making me?"

"Me?" he scoffed playfully. "I made breakfast. What are you making _me_?"

She led him into the kitchen. "Why don't you help me make spaghetti?"

"Italian?" he considered. "Because I had this fantastic dish on the planet Agora with these little—" He paused under Rose's stare. The one where she was pretending not to judge him, but really—she was judging him. "Spaghetti sounds brilliant!"


	15. The Silence Part 6

**Another chapter that got away from me BECAUSE I GOT TO THE FIRST OF TWO THINGS I WAS TRYING TO GET TO. The other thing I think you guys will like a lot more. I'm super excited for THAT.**

The final contraption was about three to four feet in diameter. The Doctor had moved it from the TARDIS to their bedroom, placing it on the floor next to his side of the bed.

"Is it gonna make noise when you turn it on?" Rose asked, concerned for the future of her sleep.

"It shouldn't," he grunted, running a wire from the top of it to the bottom, using one hand to lift the heavy thing up and the other to attach the wire.

"I thought you said you were finished." Rose jumped onto the bed, looking down at him from the edge.

His eyes flicked to her for a moment, then returned to his work. "Just some finishing touches, that's all." He spun the rotating orb at the center and then flipped it on. A mechanical whirring whistled through the air as it began, but died into silence after a few moments.

"Is it working?"

"Not really any way for me to find out—I can only slip into the Doctor's mind, but this signal is searching for River Song—she and the others seem to be keeping something from him." He stood up and admired his work. "We just have to leave it on. You can check the scans of the void at Torchwood tomorrow—might show up as a constant blip on their monitors. Nothing harmful, though."

Rose sat up and leaned back against the headboard, picking up his manuscript. When he didn't climb into bed next to her she glanced up at him. "You coming to bed, then?"

He took his hands out of his pockets and grabbed a pair of sweatpants off the chair. "I'm actually gonna go work on some things in the TARDIS—took a nap while you were at work. Not really tired just yet," he said, changing clothes.

"Don't stay up too late—try to sleep _some_, yeah?"

The Doctor leaned across the bed and gave her a kiss. "Promise," he breathed. He left the room and padded down the hall and into the TARDIS, letting out a breath and leaning back on the door once it was closed. He took a moment to sort his thoughts before pushing off and dashing up towards the console. "Right!" He pressed few keys on the keyboard and leaned back to look at the monitor, which was tuned into their bedroom. He knew Rose would absolutely murder him if she knew he was doing something like this, but he'd long decided she'd do more harm if she ever figured out what he had planned. "Now to just wait until she falls asleep."

Which only took two hours. He'd found plenty to keep him busy—he was always capable of keeping busy. He'd had books to proof read and plenty of things to tinker with. Like a new sonic screwdriver. Ever since the day he'd met River, he was obsessed with trying to figure out where she'd gotten it from. The other Doctor's new one didn't look anything like it.

The Doctor snuck back into their room and took the pages from Rose's hands, making sure to mark her spot as he quietly placed it on the nightstand. He took a second to double check that she was, indeed, asleep. He heart rate was slow and even, breathing mirroring it.

He sat on the edge of the bed and leaned down to unwrap a few wires from the device that he'd kept hidden from Rose. If she'd seen them, she would have known on the spot what they were for. Granted, when she woke, she'd know. But it was easier to ask for forgiveness than permission. With a breath, he grit his teeth and pressed the sticky ends to his temples. The connection of his mind to the device was instantaneous and slightly painful.

As quiet as he could, he made himself comfortable beneath the blankets and waited for unconsciousness to take him.

"_I don't know what you want me to tell you," the Doctor was saying. He was in a small room. Nothing but a table in the center. He raised his wrist to his face, trying to bite through the cuffs that bound them together._

"_We want you to tell us what you're talking about—what did you see?" A man in a black suit and tie demanded, pacing around on the other side of the table with his hands in his pockets._

"_I told you, I can't remember," he pressed._

"_You keep saying you don't remember—"_

"_No," the Doctor interrupted. "I'm saying _can't_—I _can't _remember because the aliens remove themselves from my memory the minute I look away."_

"_Sir, I think he's just wasting our time. Our men are already out looking for the other two—" a nameless guard began, walking into the room. No doubt a whole group of them were listening from the other side of the door._

_His superior simple held up a hand to silence him, staring down at the Doctor who'd gone rigid._

'_Can you hear me?'_

_There was a pause but the Doctor didn't reply right away. "I can't feel you in my mind," he muttered to himself, eyes darting around the room._

'_Must be the beacon—I'm splitting the signal between you and somewhere else. Seems I can only hear you if you speak aloud.'_

"_Well, this is certainly perfect timing," he said with a smile._

'_Well, I got a distress signal from someone in your universe. Seems the timing wasn't exactly coincidental.'_

"_Never ignore a coincidence."_

"_Who are you talking to?" the man in the suit demanded rather loudly._

"_An old friend," he replied, tapping his forehead. "In my head." To the other Doctor, "A distress signal from whom?"_

'_A friend.'_

"_This guy is certifiably insane," the guard urged. "We're wasting our time!"_

"_What did the signal say?"_

'_It was a distress signal,' he said in an almost sarcastic tone. 'What do you think it said?'_

"_Clever—how does Rose put up with that kind of rude behavior?"_

'_Oi! Don't get all snippy now—'_

"_I'm not getting snippy—just tell me what the signal said."_

'_It was just a cry for help,' he admitted finally. 'I built a distress signal that can amplify my thoughts to a level that you could pick up. Rose is gonna be snippy when she finds out.'_

_After some thought, the Doctor jumped out of his chair and rushed at the guard. But the man in the suit had let in three more armed guards before he could so much as lay a finger on the man._

'_What are you doing?'_

"_It's all part of the plan," he muttered to himself. "Whether or not you were in my head—this was all going to happen anyways. Now you'll just have to come along for the ride."_

_Two of the guards had him pinned to the wall while someone else began to strap him into a straight jacket. They pushed and pull at him, practically dragging him down the halls._

'_Where are you?' he asked the Doctor, taking in all the official looking people and men in black suits._

"_I think I'm in Area 51," he responded aloud._

"_Of course you," one of the guards told him. "You've been here for a week now."_

_They pulled him into a large room where another man in a black suit stood on a platform in the center of the room, hands in his pockets._

"_Canton," the Doctor greeted._

"_Have a seat," the man, Canton, said with a shit-eating grin, gesturing to a fold-out chair in the center of the platform. Armed guards stood in a ring around him, signs warning people to keep away marking the spaces between them. "I hear you've been talking to yourself—scaring the staff."_

_The Doctor just shrugged the best he could as they threw him down into the chair and chained him in. "Seems I have an unplanned visitor in my head," he responded, flipping his hair out of his eyes._

_Canton only nodded, not even trying to understand the man at this point. "Well, you won't be going anywhere for a while—I have to go collect a certain couple, so you just sit tight."_

'_What's going on there?'_

"_Not to worry."_

'_Well, I'm a little worried.'_

"_There's really nothing to worry about."_

'_I think there might be.'_

"_There's not. I've got it all planned out."_

'_Getting chained to chair in the middle of Area 51 is your great plan? I fail to see the greatness or how this is a plan.'_

"_Alright, even I have to admit that's strange," Canton muttered and the Doctor looked up from his lap to see that the man had not left yet, and was staring curiously at him. "Who are you talking to?"_

"_Myself, like you said—A previous version of myself so to speak but not really," the Doctor tried to explain._

_Canton turned away and began to walk down the aisle to the exit. "Begin building it," he commanded loudly._

"_Building what?" the Doctor muttered to himself._

'_I'm _really _trying to not to get worried about your plan. Wha kind of man are you, again?'_

"_The kind that's not worried at all."_

'_Well, I think you should be.'_

"_Why?"_

'_The distress signal was about you.'_

"_Me?"_

'_It said you were dying.'_

_The Doctor fidgeted in his chains. "Still not worried."_

'_You are so infuriating.'_

"_Why should I worry about my own death? Maybe it's my time." There was a certain sadness to his tone that the other Doctor noted and archived in his own mind. He had no response for this Doctor._

'_Doctor, tell me what has been happening,' he demanded of his newer counterpart._

_The Doctor glanced at all the people around him. He knew that speaking in any other language was out of the question. The TARDIS would just translate it back into English. He opted for quick and quiet muttering. His old self talked a mile a minute—he'd be able to keep up._

"_We found Amy Pond," a voice interrupted them some time later. The Doctor's head snapped up to see Canton and two others standing just outside a carefully drawn yellow circle around him. He held up a photo. "She had strange markings on her arms. Any idea what they mean?"_

"_Why don't you ask her?" he responded simply. _

"_We found Dr. River Song."_

_The Doctor was leaning in his chair now, watching as men in white put large black bricks together in rows, building them up around the Doctor. "These bricks, what are they made of?" he asked. "Where is she?"_

"_She ran," he said. "Off the 50__th__ floor."_

'_Doctor…'_

"_I'd say zero balance dwarf-star alloy," the Doctor breathed. "Densest material in the universe—nothing gets through that. You're building me the perfect prison."_

'_Are you really going to—to _fangirl _at a time like this?'_

_Canton only smiled._

"_Sir, we've found the male."_

_Canton nodded shortly and walked away._

'_I really think, after over 900 years, you've finally lost it, old man.'_

"_Who're _you _calling an old man?"_

'_Technically I'm younger than you—how old are you now anyways?'_

"_Irrelevant," he breathed, watching in awe as the men around him worked._

'_Well, finish telling me the relevant stuff.'_

_It was easier to recap the goings on as the men built the walls up and over his head, sealing out eavesdroppers. When the box had finally reached what seemed to be the final blocks, Canton returned, two body bags in tow._

'_Amy and Rory, I'm assuming? Still not worried?'_

"_Careful what you assume," he mumbled to himself. Aloud to Canton he asked, "Why are you doing this?"_

"_I want you to know where you stand," he replied matter-of-factly. "In a cell."_

'_In the perfect cell…'_

"_Nothing can penetrate these walls," Canton continued, shoving his hand into a slot on the wall. "No sound, not a radio wave." A door began to blend into the wall in front of the Doctor. "Not the tiniest particle of anything. In here, you're literally cut off from the rest of the universe."_

The Doctor woke, a throbbing headache pounding between his eyes. He reached up and ripped the wired off of him and rubbed a hand over his eyes. He was slightly worried. But only slightly. Last he could remember, the Doctor was being locked into the perfect cell with the bodies of his two companions and an FBI agent. That didn't exactly spell out "I have a plan," but he couldn't see it pointing to anything else.

"Oh good, you're awake," a voice called from the bathroom. Rose appeared in the doorway in a suit, hair clipped back behind her shoulders. "So explain to me why you hooked yourself up to the beacon again? Cuz I think I missed that in the initial go 'round."

The Doctor sat up and rubbed his head, wishing the sun wouldn't shine so heavily in through the window. "I didn't tell you because I knew you'd freak out."

"Accurate," she nodded, coming to stand in front of him, her knees pressing into his. "Did you at least discover anything useful?"

"Tons," he said with a small smile. "I used to beacon to amplify my thoughts so to speak to the other Doctor. I got cut off, though. He does seem to like to get himself locked inside boxes."

Rose let out a breath and took his face in her hands. "Talk to me about this stuff next time, please? I don't like it, but I like waking up surprised to see you attached to your machines even less."

"Warnings are nice," the Doctor agreed. "Like I wish I'd known this would give me a migraine." He threw the wires on the floor at the beacon.

"Well, there's aspirin in the bathroom and take it easy today. I have the weekend off so we can try to figure out a bunch of this stuff together, ok?" The Doctor nodded and she gave him a kiss before heading for the door.


	16. The Silence Part 7

"Hey. How's your head?" Rose asked as she entered the kitchen later that day where he was sitting at the kitchen table glaring at the laptop screen.

"Uh." He jabbed at a few keys with excessive force. "I uhm—won't be using the beacon until—" he started clicking the mouse rapidly, "—I can't _think_!" He pushed the mouse away and ran a hand through his hair. Rose blinked at the sight before her. She's never really seen too much of this Doctor. He never got seriously frustrated often.

"You alright?" Rose asked gently, sitting down in the chair next to him. She pulled his hands away from him face and he gave her a sigh before looking at her with tired eyes. They just stared at each other for a moment.

"How was work?" he asked quietly.

She offered a small smile. "Nothing to report. How was your day?"

"I can't focus," he admitted. "Head's been killing me all day."

Rose jumped out of the chair and jogged down the hallway. "I'll find something stronger." When she returned, she dropped down into the chair and rolled the pill bottle in her hands, reading the label.

"What's the normal dosage?"

"Two pills," she muttered.

"Give me six—my Time Lord genes will burn through the lower dosage."

She eyed him wearily but surrendered six of the tiny pills, which he swallowed without any water. She continued to watch him and bit her lip in an attempt to control the smile growing across her face.

"What?" he asked after a minute, a small smile forming on his own face.

"Nothing." Teeth were showing now. He tongue poking out like it did when she was being clever.

"Ah, it's something, Rose Tyler."

"It's just," she began, leaning into her elbows on the table.

"Just what?"

"Do you realize how domestic you've gotten?" she said with a small giggle. "You live in an apartment with me; you have a door, windows, carpets."

"I have noticed," he said with a smile, "yes. I suppose you help make it less terrifying."

"It's not all that terrifying to begin with, but I mean, you have human clothes, you actually cook in a real kitchen—"

"My book's gonna get published—"

"Your book's getting—your book is getting published?" she asked in surprise.

He gave her his signature grin. "Look at me—icon of domesticity!"

She stood up and pulled him to her. "That's fantastic!" She gave him a kiss, her voice dropping to a murmur. "Shall we celebrate."

"Celebrate my being able to be domestic and survive, or the fact that my headache is finally going away?" he asked, pulling on the belt loops at her sides.

"Both, I suppose," she laughed. "I always thought you'd be the type to dismantle my toaster and blow up the kitchen trying to learn to cook."

He pulled back to give her a disbelieving look. "Oi! Who's to say I haven't dismantled the toaster? I put it back together—welll, mostly. There's always a _bit _left over. And I am over nine hundred years old—I'd like to think I learned to cook at _some _point in my life."

"Mmm, well, let's see what else you've learned in all that time," she laughed, racing towards their bedroom, the Doctor following close behind.

XXX

The Doctor woke up to something dropping onto his face. Startled, he quickly pulled the cloth off and looked around the room to see Rose in sweatpants standing by the dresser.

"Mum's bringing Tony by for the morning. It'd be nice if you weren't naked when she got here," Rose said with a grin. The Doctor's eyes flicked down to the blankets that were barely covering himself.

"Right," he grunted, sitting up. "And why is she coming here—not that I mind babysitting Tony. I love Tony."

Rose turned away from him and bit her lip. "Uh, today's kind of like their anniversary. Dad has to work tonight so I told them I'd watch Tony to give them the morning alone."

"You mean his and the other Jackie's anniversary?" The Doctor pulled on the jeans Rose had thrown at him and picked out a clean long-sleeve shirt.

"No, I mean—that's the one they celebrate publicly, this is the one they've chosen as kind of like their own," Rose explained quietly. "It's the day we ended up here. Four years ago? I've lost count."

The Doctor stared at her back as she folded clothes and shoved them into the drawers. She was working quickly, her head down. Had it really been that long since they'd traveled together in the TARDIS? _He _certainly didn't want to make this day anything she'd want to remember, though her parents didn't have a reason not to.

"I'm just gonna write down stuff from last night for a moment, then I'll cook breakfast, if you want," he suggested. "Or I can run out and get something to eat here—any idea if Tony's been fed yet?"

Rose laughed. "I'm sure mum has fed him but I'll give her a ring and check. Hey—is your head feeling any better?"

He poked his head back into the room. "Much. Think I might actually be able to fix what's wrong with the beacon. Just needed to release the pressure—make it easier to think rationally."

Days passed easily, the Doctor only needing to write down little notes in his book from the adventures in his dreams. He hadn't been able to connect to the Doctor other than the one time, but he was well on his way to making the beacon safer to connect with.

He was gathering notes, desperately trying to figure out less why the Doctor was dying and more how to keep his mind from going there. Rose would try to help every once in a while, offering helpful comments.

Rose was on an assignment away from Torchwood the day he found out. He was in the TARDIS when a light inside started flashing and the scanner flickered to life. The Doctor picked himself up off the floor where he was tinkering and pulled the scanner down to him, sliding on his glasses.

"What?" He studied the graph that was up on the screen, trying to find some faulty calibration as he tore around the console. "No." He began pounding at the keys, finding very quickly that there was no fault in his equipment. "What the hell is Torchwood doing?"

The Doctor leaned against the railing and rubbed at his face vigorously. He couldn't think of any other way to go about getting his answers. His scanners were showing a dangerously high level of activity in the void and there was only one way to find out what.

He did what he knew how, and took the TARDIS to Torchwood, parking it in the middle of their testing site. He pulled the doors open and stormed out. The flurry of men racing around in panic was a clear sign.

"How did you get in here?" an important look man in a suit demanded, stopping the Doctor's pursuit across the room with a hand on his chest.

"Are you in charge?" the Doctor snapped.

"Of this experiment, yes. And you're interrupting," the man said, studying the Doctor. "Who are you and how did you get in here?"

"Listen to me," the Doctor started, ignoring the man. "What you're doing could destroy this world."

"We're well aware of the risks—we've taken precautions and safety measures—"

"Which will do you no good if you completely destroy the universe!"

The man stood up straighter. "I don't know who you are or how you got in here and frankly I don't care." The Doctor eyed the instrument he'd been looking for over the man's shoulder. Two security guards stepped up next to him and blocked the Doctor's view. "I suggest you get back in your little box and return to wherever you came from before we decide to _take it_."

"I dare you to try," the Doctor growled in a low voice.

"Doctor," a new voice said from his side. He looked over to find Pete glancing between him and the man with eyebrows drawn. "Doctor, please, just go."

Reluctantly, he turned and stormed back to the TARDIS. "Please tell me you didn't know about this," the Doctor pleaded, stopping with a hand on the door.

"No idea at all," Pete assured him. "I was supposed to be in a meeting for the next two hours but we postponed it due to the ruckus in here."

"Don't think for even a minute that I'm not going to do something about this," he told Pete, pushing the door open.

"Same."

XXX

"Doctor?" Rose called as she shut the door. She dropped her things and followed the sound of banging until she was standing in the doorway of the TARDIS, watching what looked like a tantrum. "Doctor."

He froze, one hand poised to throw a scrap piece of metal across the room. He dropped it and rubbed a hand through his hair. "When did you get home?"

"Just now," Rose said slowly, crossing her arms. "You alright? I heard you took a trip to Torchwood ."

"Rose," the Doctor began in almost a whisper. "Please, please, _please _tell me you had no idea they were building a new dimension cannon." He noticed Rose flinch a little, her arms tightening across her chest, he weight shifting from foot to foot. That was all the confirmation he needed.

"It could help," Rose began to argue. "I could use it to—"

"Destroy this whole universe and possibly the other one," the Doctor snapped, trying hard not to yell. "What they've built—it's not a dimension cannon. It's a dimension _wrecking ball_ and it's going to tear this world apart."

"It's going to help," Rose pressed, getting angry herself now. "We can send people to the other universe to stop the Silence."

"That's not what I'm worried about," the Doctor snapped. "My mind is so _far _from being worried about the other Doctor or the Silence." He walked away from Rose and back to the mound of metal he was tearing through. She noticed, then, that he'd been ripping apart the beacon.

"So, what? You can play in the void and Torchwood can't?" Rose turned back towards the door.

"Torchwood doesn't know _how_, Rose," the Doctor yelled, angry she wasn't seeing how dangerous this was. "My scans picked up their activity from here. They almost destroyed everything _today _and you're not seeing how bad this is."

"I'm not," she admitted angrily, throwing her arms out. "I'm not seeing how this is dangerous when we've done it before."

The Doctor pulled at his hair in frustration. "That was different!"

"Different how?"

"Back then, the walls of the universe were deteriorating—you were only able to get through the void because your world and the void barely existed as it was."

They were in each other's faces now, angry and yelling.

"Then teach us how to do it right!"

The Doctor groaned and stormed back to his pile. "You're not getting it. There _is not _a way to do this right because the whole thing is _wrong_, Rose. I thought you'd be able to understand this, at least. I guess not."

Rose just shook her head, obviously angry, hurt, and offended. "Sleep in here tonight, I don't care." The Doctor watched her leave, slamming the door to the TARDIS. He let out a yell of frustration.


	17. The Silence Part 8

The Doctor dragged a hand down his face, trying to calm himself down. He took a breath and let it out slowly. Alright. So at least he'd be able to test the new beacon. He left the TARDIS a couple of hours after their fight, stopping by their bedroom to find the door locked. He went to the kitchen to make himself a sandwich, slightly pleased to find a pair of clean sweatpants sitting on the table.

It killed him to fight with her, but this was something he wouldn't budge on. He had to get her to see why this new and seemingly more powerful cannon was such a bad idea. It could destroy everything and he just couldn't fathom why she would still try even knowing that.

He shoved half the sandwich in his mouth as he entered the TARDIS again. A few clicks on the console and a new door appeared behind him. "Give that a few hours and I'll have somewhere to sleep." He turned to the pile of scrap metal and frowned. "That'll take a little more than a few hours."

The Doctor was still awake when Rose got up for work the next morning. He'd moved to the kitchen in hopes of finishing breakfast before she got out of her shower—there was nothing he wanted less than to fight with her first thing in the morning. But fate was not on his side. Apparently she'd already finished her shower and joined him in the kitchen not long after her got there.

"How much time do you have?" he asked quietly. "I can make you breakfast."

"I'll get something on the way to work," she replied without looking at him.

"Rose—" But she was already closing the front door. "Humans!" he growled to himself. The Doctor paused, his hand slowly finding its way to his own human heart. No longer hungry, more tired than anything else, he went back to the TARDIS and dragged the new and improved beacon to the bedroom he'd made in the back.

He turned the beacon on and sat on the bed. "Might as well test it out," he muttered to himself as he connected the wires to his temples, noting the lack of unpleasant stinging. He could feel a pull. And unusually strong pull. Lights flashed out in the console room and instantly he knew what was happening. Torchwood was testing the cannon again, and this time the results would definitely prove to be harmful.

The TARDIS shook violently. The Doctor tried to remove the wires and shut off the beacon, but he was tossed to the floor, body slamming into the wall as the room tilted. He scuttled to his feet and scrambled to get to the console. Looking at the scanner, his eyes widened in disbelief.

"No, no, no!" he ran to the doors and threw them open. "_No!_" He looked around at the unfamiliar interior of wherever he landed. It wasn't anything he'd seen before, but there was only one place he could have ended up. He raced back to the console, but the energy was drained. It would take a few hours before he could even attempt a return trip.

He tugged at his hair and made his way into the console room outside of his own TARDIS.

"Who are you and how did you get in here?" someone demanded behind him. He spun around to find a red-headed woman and a man staring at him.

"Amy and Rory," the Doctor breathed.

"How do you know our names?" Rory asked slowly.

"Sorry—I'm the Doctor—welll, not _your _Doctor. It's a long story actually. A long story ending with me not supposed to be here. My being here is bad. Very bad."

"You expect me to believe you're the Doctor?" Amy said, following him as he walked around the console.

"I don't expect you to believe me at all," he muttered. "You hardly know me while I, on the other hand, know quite a bit about you, Amy Pond. You're the girl who waited and he's the Last Centurion." He turned to look at them. "At least, that's what _he _calls you."

Amy bit her lip in thought. "The Doctor told me once something about regenerating. How he can have more than one face. Are you a different regeneration?"

The Doctor lifted an eyebrow. "Like I said—it's a long story." He glanced around the darkened room, eyes landing on the glowing green light coming in the window. "Well, that looks ominous."

Rory dashed to the door, pounding on them, trying to get them unlocked. The phone rang and Amy picked up immediately. "Doctor? There's something wrong with the TARDIS." She paused, moving as the Doctor dashed around the console. "You've locked it, remember?"

"We're trapped," Rory grumbled.

The Doctor snatched the phone from Amy and Rory took her hand.

"We've got a lot of problems in here," he said into the phone.

"Who is this?" the other Doctor panted. "Rory?"

"Not quite," the Tenth said. "The doors are locked and the TARDIS is, well, dead-ish and there's not enough energy in _my _TARDIS to get us out of here."

Something clicked in the newer regeneration's mind. "Handy? How—"

"No time, just _get in here_." He hung up the phone as the Doctor on the outside of the TARDIS tried to get in, banging on the walls. Wind picked up and he could hear Amy and Rory murmuring to one another. A green light lit up the console room a little better. "Not…good…"

"We're in the TARDIS," Rory comforted Amy. "We're safe."

"Not quite," a voice echoed throughout the room.

"Who're you?" the Doctor demanded.

"I am House," he explained. "Now tell me why I shouldn't kill you all right now."

"Tell 'im, Rory," Amy mumbled, nudging her husband.

"Because," Rory started slowly, thinking. "Because killing us quickly wouldn't be any fun. And you need fun, don't you? You need to be entertained. And killing us quickly wouldn't be entertain…ment…"

"So entertain me."

The Doctor grabbed their hands. "Run!" And they took off into the labyrinth. "I may not recognize the new desktop theme but I still know my own TARDIS."

"Speaking of TARDIS's, what about yours out in the console room?" Amy called up to him.

The Doctor shook his head. "She'll be drained for the next few hours. She's still new. _Her _chameleon circuit still works so she'll blend in with the console room. She'll be fine."

"Alright, well, what about us?" Rory asked.

"A little less fine," he breathed when they ran into a dead end. "He's playing games with us, changing the layout of the TARDIS. I'm just as helpless as you two."

"This is going to be fun," the voice boomed.

XXX

After being split up, reunited, teased, pulled, and played with, the Doctor was getting more than a little irked. "Come on _think_," he snapped at himself when they hit a dead end again. "Think…"

"Up the ladder," Amy commanded, pointing to their right. "If we stay here too long who knows what House will do." So they began to climb. Rory halted on the ladder and flinched.

"Rory?" the Doctor called up.

"Hold on," he called back. "I think I'm getting a message."

"What was that?" Amy demanded when he started climbing again.

"That woman and the Doctor."

"What woman?" the Doctor wanted to know.

"We have to keep going," Rory told them. They took off down a hall and came to a locked door. "This must be what she was talking about."

"I know this part!" the Doctor exclaimed, gently nudging them out of the way. He placed his hand on the door and shut his eyes.

"Doctor, it's coming," Amy whispered, shaking the sleeve of his shirt. The door slid open and he turned to find an Ood quickly approaching.

"Oh, it's only and Ood!" The Doctor grinned. "But how did it get on here?"

"It's not been very friendly in our experiences today," Rory said quickly as the two of him pulled them into the room.

"What is this?" Amy breathed.

The Doctor spun around and let out a laugh. "Oi! What's this, then?"

"Another control room?" Rory guessed as the Doctor led the way to the console.

"Not just _any _control room," he grinned, moving a slider across the board. "This is _my _control room."

"How did you find this place?" House demanded calmly. "It's not on my internal schematic."

"Oh, I shouldn't think it would be," the Doctor grinned. "This place was destroyed. This is a room recreated from the archives using a simple recall code at the door."

"You three are nothing but trouble." The door opened once more, allowing the Ood to get in.

A yellow light surrounded them suddenly. "Get out of the way or you'll be atomized!" the Doctor commanded, pushing Rory and Amy out of the light before flinging himself out.

The wind died down, leaving the eleventh Doctor and a woman on the floor of a half-built TARDIS.

"Doctor," Amy breathed in relief, hugging him.

"Not good," the Tenth grunted, pulling the woman off the floor. "Not good at all."

"So you really are here," the Doctor muttered in wonder, helping his previous self get the woman upright.

"Later."

"Environment has been breached. Nephew. Kill them all."

"Evil Ood, a TARDIS stuck inside a _human, _and a _thing _stuck inside the TARDIS?" the Tenth grumbled. "What have you been doing over here?"

"What, haven't you been dreaming about me?" he asked with a smile and flip of his hair. The other Doctor simply lifted an eyebrow and started. The newer Doctor pointed, frowning now. "I do miss the eyebrows."

"Doctor," Amy snapped. "Focus."

"Nephew—is that what you were calling that Ood?" the Tenth asked, staring at the ceiling. "If you're referring to the Ood, well, sorry to say he's been redistributed. You're breathing him."

"Aw, come on," Amy groaned, covering her face.

"Another on the long list of Ood I failed to save," the Eleventh muttered.

"Not that you're counting," his counterpart murmured back.

"Doctor," House greeted. "I wasn't expecting you."

"Well, that's me. Good, old, unexpected _me_."

"Does he have a plan?" Rory whispered to Amy, who only shrugged.

"Oh," the Tenth grinned, leaning back on the railing, pleased he was getting to see himself work. "There's always a plan."

"The big question is—now you're here," House noted. "How to dispose of you. Why shouldn't I just kill you now?"

"Because then I won't be able to help you," he admitted. "Listen to your engines. You don't have a lot of time. Right now I'm your only hope for getting out of your little bubble and into _my _universe. Mine's the one with the food in it. You just have to promise not to kill us. That's all."

"Please tell me that's not his plan," Rory muttered, tending to the woman who had begun panting.

"You can't be series," Amy breathed.

"I'm very serious." He bent down to the woman. "Not long now, just hang in there. Delete thirty percent of the rooms in the TARDIS and activate sub-routine Sigma Nine."

"Why would you tell me this?" House wondered.

"Because we want to get back to our universe as badly as you do. And I'm nice."

"You're right. I can delete rooms. And I'll start with this one."

"Brace yourselves," the Tenth announced with a grin as a white light flooded the room.

"Yes, you could do that," the Doctor yelled, pacing around the console. "Automatic failsafe anything that shouldn't be deleted are deposited in the main control room. But thanks for the left."

"No matter," House said. "It makes no difference to me where I kill you. Fear me, I've killed hundreds of Time Lords."

"Fear _me_—I've killed them all," the Eleventh Doctor responded with a smirk.

"Doctor," Rory said quietly. "She's stopped breathing."

"You should have been very, _very _careful what you let back in this room." A golden light seemed to lift up from the woman's body and float around the room to unknown destinations.

House seemed to be fighting something. The lights dimmed and the Doctor gripped the railing, head bowed. Both Doctor's were thinking of another time. Slowly the lights changed back to normal.

"Doctor, before she went, she kept saying the only water in the forest is the River," Rory informed him.

He nodded, back still to him, taking this information in. "I don't know what that means yet." The Eleventh Doctor turned to the one who shouldn't have been there. "You," he said.

"Me." The Tenth grinned.

"Bit of a different wardrobe," he commented, studying the man's sweatpants.

"Was a long night."

"I'll bet Rose is worried," he said, turning towards the scanner and typing away on the keyboard. "How is she doing?"

"Quite angry with me, last I checked," he said, crossing his arms.

"Doctor," Amy started, addressing her Doctor. "Is this man really you?"

"Yes," he said simply. "From a different part of my timeline. It's a long and complicated story." He moved to the Tenth version of himself and moved to put his hands on his temples.

"Don't!" Rory called out. "Won't something bad happen if you touch him—like the screwdrivers at Pandorica?"

But when the Doctor's hands touched the other's face, nothing happened. Their eyes slid shut and they stayed like that for a moment. The Eleventh took a breath and stepped back, hands dropping to his sides.

"So where's your TARDIS now?"

The Tenth looked around the room where he thought he'd left it and ended up walking right into it. "Every time," he muttered, feeling the front for the handle and pushing the door open.

"Alright, well." The Eleventh Doctor sprung into action and continued on plucking at keys beneath the scanner. He froze. "Well, that's unexpected. Good, old, unexpected….well, me."

"What?" the other Doctor asked, coming to look at the scanner.

"You got sucked in here through a small tear in the void that exists for about half a second due to the dimension cannon Torchwood was testing. I've been trying to figure out how to send you back and I was scanning the void when I found this." He turned the scanner fully towards his clone.

His eyes widened and his eyebrows came together. "There's another Time Lord in my universe?"

"_Your _universe?" Rory asked, but Amy just held up a hand. "If he really is the Doctor, then there's no way we'll understand what's going on until later when he explains it to us. For now, just watch.

"But that's _impossible_," he dismissed quickly. But the Eleventh simply looked at him, pressing his lips together. "It's impossible."

"Is it?" he asked evenly.

"Welll, when I say _impossible _I mean _highly unlikely_." He paused and looked into the eyes of the Doctor. "She can't be, can she?"

"It's just a blip," he said with a shrug. "She probably doesn't even know."

They both let that sink in before the Tenth took a deep breath, straightened up, and asked, "So how do I get back to her, then?"


	18. The Silence Part 9

"First of all, we need to get _your _TARDIS out of _mine_."

"Done." The Doctor ran off to his TARDIS and shut the door, flipping switches to move the box outside of the other. As soon as his scanner told him he was in space, he jerked both doors open to find Eleven leaning on the frame of his, staring up at the other's TARDIS.

"Your chameleon circuit still works," he noted.

"Yeah, wellll, haven't gotten around to taking it anywhere just yet. Only been on one trip to Torchwood."

"It's taken to the Police Box again," Eleven smiled. "Must be because my ship is the only one around." Eleven jumped the space between their ships and led the way to the very familiar console. The two were muttering to each other, flying about the console of Tenth's TARDIS when Amy and Rory appeared in the doorway.

"Oh, there is no question that they are the same person," Amy mumbled to Rory as they followed after them slowly. "Oi, anything we can do to help?"

"Just stand there," they both called back in unison.

"The same," Rory sighed. He took his wife's hand. "Shall we wait in the other console room?" She grinned and they left the two Doctor's to fiddle with a TARDIS that was unfamiliar to them.

"I haven't done this in _years_," Eleven squealed, flipping switches. He jerked something hard and the lever broke off.

"What was that?"

"Uhm," he knew exactly what it was. Maybe it was an accident. Maybe not. "Nothing." Eleven flipped one last switch and sighed. He walked over to face his other self. "Now you know the rest."

He was half way to the door before the Doctor stopped him. "Oi!" he called. When he turned around, the Tenth tossed something to him.

"A sonic screwdriver?" he muttered, inspecting it.

"I have a feeling River will need that one day," he explained sadly. "Complete with a red setting and dampers."

Eleven stared at it for a second before letting out a soft chuckle. "I always wondered when I made this."

"I didn't realize what it was until I was halfway done with it," he said. "I was just trying to recreate my old one, but it ended up a bit differently. I guess this was always bound to happen."

"Maybe," he whispered after a moment. The Doctor watched his other self turn and leave, shutting the doors behind him, leaving the Doctor alone.

Without a second thought, the Doctor twisted the last knob and pulled a handle down. Suddenly to room was shaking, twisting through space as he cut through the void following a small string of a lifeline.

The scanner above his head said he was back where he had started a few hours ago. And he would have believed that, too, had Rose not shoved the doors open looking like a frantic mad woman. She stood in the doorway and he could see their apartment behind her.

"What's wrong?" he asked, walking around the console slowly. Her eyebrows pulled together, eyes still wide, as she advanced towards him with that look. She met him near the console and slapped him across the face.

"Are you mad?" she demanded breathlessly, voice still conveying her anger.

"Considering I don't know what I've done, I can't answer that honestly," he told her, putting a hand to his cheek and checking it to make sure there was no blood. Hurt like there was blood…

"Where the bloody _hell _have you been?" she snapped. "You've been gone for a _week_."

"What?" the Doctor asked, taken aback. He moved to check his scanner. "No I haven't. I've only be gone for…." His eyes scanned the time stamp and he licked his lips nervously. "One week, six hours, and forty-three minutes."

"Where did you go?" Rose's voice had taken a quieter tone, but he could tell she was still pissed, and he felt a tiny bubble of anger growing inside himself, too.

He knew what he was about to say was cold, but she just wasn't understanding. "Ask yourself this," he began, pulling up some of his own scans of the void from the week before. "What was Torchwood doing exactly one week, six hours, and forty-three minutes ago?" He spun the screen so that she could see the spike in the map and the point that it cut off.

Her breathing hitched and he could see the anger melting from her face. He moved to take her hand but she flinched away, eyes still on the scan. He knew she knew what the rest of the graph looked like back at Torchwood. And he also knew she knew why his was incomplete.

"Where did you go?" she asked again, but this time her voice was barely above a whisper.

"I met Amy and Rory in person. The new Doctor is a bit shorter than me," he hinted, shoving his hands in the pockets of his sweatpants.

"It's my fault." She looked away from him, eyes shining with tears.

He took her face in his hands and made her look at him. He grinned. "My meeting him in person again was always going to happen, I've known this for a few days now. It's not your fault."

"I should have listened to you," she admitted. "I just—" A sob broke off her words and he finally pulled her to him in a crushing hug.

"I thought I wasn't going to be able to get back to you," he murmured into her hair.

"How did you get back?" she asked, reminding him. He let out a laugh of realization at remembering just what it was that allowed him to return at all. "I thought travel between the two worlds was impossible."

He let out one more laugh before capturing her lips. "Spoilers."

"Have you eaten?" she asked, wiping at her face and the mascara running down it.

"Starving."

She took his hand and led him out of the TARDIS and into the kitchen. He dropped her hand when something on the table caught his eye. "When did this get here?" he asked, holding up the book. The cover was slick, glossy paper, the words pressed into it. The artwork reminded him of a book he'd seen only once before.

She threw a glance over her shoulder as she filled the kettle in the sink to see what he was talking about. "Oh, that," she said with a laugh. "That came about two days ago. I've seen the cover art on a book before—that woman, River Song, had a book that looked just like it when she came to visit me the time you didn't exist."

"River Song?" He knew he'd seen it before. Seems the coincidences kept on coming.

"But the penname you chose was what threw me." She put the kettle on the stove and turned up the heat before joining him, studying the cover of the book. "D. Tyler? Why not John Smith?"

A smile began to grow on the Doctor's face. "The name John Smith doesn't mean anything to me. It's a name I used when I traveled to keep anonymous—so no one could find me. And like you said—I couldn't put 'the Doctor.'"

"So why my last name?" she whispered, looking up at him.

He reached up and wiped a fleck of mascara off her cheek. "Like I said—no other name means anything to me."

Before he knew what was happening, she'd shut off the stove and had his shirt half off. He saved her the trouble and took it off the rest of the way before knocking her off his feet and carrying her to their bedroom. Food could wait.


	19. The Silence Part 10

The Doctor woke up a couple hours later, Rose still asleep next to him. He closed his eyes and buried his face in her hair, which was splayed across their pillows. He'd thought he wouldn't ever see her again in those short hours in the other universe.

It was thanks to her that he'd been trapped there in the first place, but it was also thanks to her that he'd found a way back. His hand traveled down to her hips, thumb dragging in a trail across her navel.

_It's just a blip_, he'd been told. _She probably doesn't even know._

Now was the question—should he tell her, or wait until she found out naturally? It was too soon, so she probably didn't even notice anything off with her body. It was too early, he decided for now. Too much could go wrong and he didn't want to excite her and get her hopes up over nothing.

The Doctor took a breath and slipped out from underneath her. He pulled the blankets up and over her bare shoulders and then slipped on a clean pair of pants. He sat at the little desk and opened his little black notebook to a clean page. He'd only taken a two or three hour nap, but it was long enough to have an extensive dream about the Doctor and some sort of flesh avatars.

Rose stirred behind him when he stood up to find food. "I've gotta stop with the random napping. I'm not gonna be able to sleep later tonight at this rate." She noticed what he'd been doing and sat up, reaching down the side of the bed for the clothing that had been ripped off and discarded. "What happened this time?"

"Amy's gone—she was taken," he explained, tossing her his shirt when she couldn't find hers. "She—her daughter has been taken, too."

"So, what—this is what everything has been leading up to?" Rose guessed.

"No. I think this is just the beginning of the end." He opened his mouth to continue and ended up coughing.

"Getting sick?"

He shook his head and cleared his throat. "Just a human cold."

"You know," Rose mused, standing up. "I think I've heard that one before."

His eyebrows rose. "Low blow."

Rose just laughed and headed for the kitchen, the Doctor following close behind. She picked up a dirty pot and took it to the sink to clean it, quick and easy food recipes scrolling through her head. She glanced up as he leaned against the counter next to her and crossed his arms.

"What?"

"Have you ever thought about having kids?" He tried to make the question light and innocent, but there was a certain way he kind of choked on the words that he hated.

If she heard it, she pretended not to notice, but she threw him a glance and a smirk as she scrubbed. "Where's this all coming from?"

"Just something I was wondering—Tony asked the other day," he recovered quickly.

"Well, yeah, I mean hasn't everyone thought about having kids?" she murmured, shutting off the water and drying the pot. "But you haven't even asked me to marry you."

"Oh, come on," the Doctor groaned. "I'm not even a legal citizen here and your citizenship has been faked and forged thanks to Torchwood. What can a marriage really do, anyways? It's a legal and religious binding between two people—a religion I don't believe in and a legal system that says I don't exist." She looked away from him and took a towel to the pot. He filled up the silence, continuing to ramble. "But if you want a wedding I will gladly go through the motions for you, but I really don't think we need a wedding for me to show you just how completely I'm in love with you."

"Do you ever get tired of saying the most perfect things all the time?" she asked quietly, placing the pot on the stove and turning the heat for that and the tea kettle they'd left there earlier that night.

The Doctor pretended to think about it. "Welll—no. Not really." He gave her a grin and she swatted at him. "But—my earlier question?"

She dug in the fridge, hiding her face. "I mean, yeah, having kids would be great. When it happens, it happens." She straightened and threw him a look. "I mean, neither of us are the most precautionary people. I don't think you even know what precautions are."

"Oi!" he said defensively. "I do, too!"

"Right," she laughed. "Here, help me make dinner."

XXX

"_You are _not _a psychopath," Amy insisted. "Why would she be a psychopath?"_

"_Oh, Mummy," River chanted, taking slow steps around the room. "I was conditioned and trained for one purpose. To kill the Doctor."_

"_Demon's run, remember," the Doctor answered. "This is what they were building." He stood close to the crazy woman. "A psychopath."_

"_I'm all yours, Sweetie," she said, pecking him on the lips._

"_Only River Song gets to call me that," he murmured._

"_And who's River Song?"_

"_An old friend of mine."_

"_Stupid name."_

_The Doctor froze, suddenly feeling the presence in his head. _Can you hear me?

'_So you can feel me here, now?' the other Doctor wondered. 'What's changed? I'm not using the beacon.'_

I'm not sure—have you been visiting lately?

'_Not much. I only got back from your universe a few hours ago.'_

Hm, _the Doctor mused. _It's been much longer here. Alright—to catch you up, Amy and Rory's daughter is Melody Pond. Melody Pond is River Song.

'_Alright, spoilers, got it. And from what I heard just now and the last time, River was meant to kill you.'_

Right.

'_Doctor, you're—'_

_The Doctor glanced down at his hand, noticing a slight dragging sensation when he moved it, like the limb was falling asleep._

"_Mum, Dad, don't follow me," River was saying when the Doctor snapped to attention. "And yes—that is a warning."_

"_No warning for me, then?" the Doctor asked with a smile._

'_Doctor,' his other incarnation persisted. 'Doctor—your heart—'_

"_No need, my love," she said smoothly. "The deed is done. And so are you." She blew a kiss and hopped out the window, catching a glimpse of the Doctor taking a step forward and collapsing._

"_Doctor!" Amy dove to catch him as he dropped to his knees. "Doctor, what's wrong?"_

'_One of your hearts has stopped.'_

"_What has she done?" he demanded just as he realized._

"_What has she done to you?" Rory asked, trying to keep him upright._

"_She poisoned me. But I'm fine," he managed to say. _Get out, get out of my head, _now_, _he insisted to the presence in his head. _If my life effects yours and my heart has stopped—

_But the presence in his mind had already begun to fade, slowly, before disappearing altogether._


	20. The Silence Part 11

"You're going to be the death of me, I swear," Rose mumbled, breathing hard above him.

He was breathing just as hard as she was, but he was sure she was more confused. "What?"

"You yelled out in your sleep—wasn't very loud but you're lucky it was enough to wake me," Rose breathed, dropping down onto the bed next to him. "Your heart stopped."

"Did it?" he asked between gasps of air as nonchalantly as he could. "I need to get this sorted."

"Is the other Doctor…"

The Doctor rolled his head to look at Rose, his eyes meeting hers. "No, not yet. But he's been poisoned."

"How can we help him?" she whispered.

His eyes traveled back up to the ceiling and his hand found hers on top of the blankets. "We don't," he responded easily.

Rose propped herself up onto her elbow and stared down at him. "How can you say that? You know him—what he's gone through, what he's done for us—"

"Exactly. I know what he's done," he explained. "I know what he's done for me and he gave me a life. One single, human life. And I gave that life away to you. I'm not going to waste my life helping the Doctor get himself out of situations because quite honestly, I know more than anyone else he can get out of them without my help."

Rose flopped back down, closer to his side than she had been before. "So what do we do, then?"

"We figure out what takes my mind to his while I'm sleeping and somehow make it stop."

Rose flicked off the light. "Easier said than done."

XXX

He slept easily through the rest of the night, waking up briefly to see Rose off as she left for work. He put up a front around her, acting as normal as he could, but all he wanted to do was curl in on himself at the pain in his chest.

The Doctor didn't feel like tinkering in the TARDIS or doing anything slightly domestic. His book had yet to be published so he really didn't have anything to work on. Which he was thankful for when the pounding headache began thundering in his head the moment he crawled back into the bed.

"You feeling alright?" Weight shifted on the bed and he felt a cool hand brush his hair off his forehead. "You kinda warm."

"I'm fine," he grumbled, his headache still a prominent force between his eyes. "Shouldn't you be at work?"

"Oi! Don't you even know what time it is?" Rose asked him, standing up and shedding her coat. "How long have you been asleep?"

The Doctor's eyes flicked to the time, immediately noting the eight hour difference. "Ahhhh—a few, I guess?"

"Yeah," Rose said, unconvinced.

He let out a breath and stood, but immediately a weakness settled in his legs and he began to fall, Rose jumping to catch him. She got him back to sitting on the edge of the bed, his head hanging. She pulled his chin up gently so that he was looking at her.

"I—"

"What's wrong?" she demanded.

His hand pressed against the front of his shirt and his jaw worked to find words, only to vocalize his thoughts almost painfully bluntly. "I think I'm dying."

Her eyebrows shot up, then dipped down in confusion. "How do you mean?"

He stood up and leaned heavily on the arm she offered him. "Help me to the TARDIS."

They silently made their way into the TARDIS, the Doctor finding his way to the jump seat, pulling the monitor down to his level. Rose watched patiently as he twisted a knob on the console and clicked away on the keyboard. His eyes got narrower and narrower as time wore on and Rose wasn't sure how much longer she could stand in silence.

"I…"

"What?" Rose whispered, coming to look at the screen. "What is it? What's wrong with you?"

"Several of my organs are beginning to fail," he muttered, pointing to a flashing little red icon. He turned his eyes towards Rose. "I have two—may three weeks."

"To what?" Rose gasped. "To live?"

The Doctor could no longer look at her. "Yeah," he shrugged.

"So, what do we do? What can we do?" Rose began to pace around the console. "This has to be another effect from the other universe."

"Is it?"

Rose stopped her pacing and rounded on him. "Well? What else could it be?"

He crossed his arms, his whole demeanor defeated. "This could just be coincidental."

"Coincidental?" she spat.

"In my head, I'm a Time Lord. I've still got a Time Lord mind," he explained quietly despite Rose's yelling. "Maybe the body is finally unable to keep up with the mind."

Rose's hands flew to her face and he pulled her down into his lap as she began to cry. "I can't—I just can't go through that again," she whispered, tears streaming down her cheeks. "Please don't leave me again."

"Rose," he breathed, pulling her into his chest. "I promise you'll never be alone. I'll think of something. Trust me—I'm the Doctor."

She giggled and wiped her face. "I love you."

"I love you, too, Rose Tyler. Forever." The sat in silence for a few minutes, The Doctor cradling Rose.

"So what now?" she finally asked. "What do we do next? Where do we go from here?"

The Doctor leaned over her and with one hand began to type away on the keyboard. "Right now, I'm going to prescribe myself some acetylcysteine—" he squinted at the ceiling, his mind scanning his body once more, "—and some insulin. That should improve me some."

"Some," she chuckled darkly. "There's still so much I wanted to do." She paused and he could see some gear working in her head, an expression overcoming her that was just so Rose Tyler. "Yesterday, when you asked about having kids—did you know then that all this was happening?"

"What?" he grunted, taken by surprise. "No, no. Rose, that was something different. This is just as much a new discovery for me as it is for you."

"'Something different,' —so it wasn't out of the blue," she concluded with just the faintest hint of a smirk.

"No," he admitted. "It wasn't just out of the blue."

"You want kids, then?" Her voice had dropped to barely a whisper, hopeful and quite.

He took her hands in his. "I would love to have kids with you someday, Rose Tyler."

She smiled. "Someday," she mused. "You know, this is so sudden, I'm still not convinced the other Doctor doesn't have something to do with it—you said he was poisoned."

"Right, but—"

"But what if the poison is causing his organs to fail?"

"Okay, then—"

"And I've been coming up with some ideas about this whole dream thing," Rose continued. She stood up and began to pace in front of him, gesturing enthusiastically.

"Rose—"

"If the beacon amplifies your brainwaves enough to talk to him, maybe we just need to block your mind from getting out. Some kind of shield."

"Rose." The Doctor grabbed her and clamped him hand over her mouth, effectively silencing her. "As brilliant as you, are, I've already thought of all of this. Many times. This may be an effect from what's happening over there, but I have to admit I've been expecting something like this to happen to me regardless." He watched her face fall behind his hand. "As for the beacon, there's no way I could make something that wouldn't hurt your mind or the—well, it'd be too dangerous."

"So what do we do, then?"

He stood up, hand hovering over the jump seat as he gained his balance. "My theory is that it has something to do with this eleventh regeneration. I didn't start having these problems until he began to regenerate."

"So?" Rose prompted. "What are you saying? You'll be pulled towards him more and more as he regenerates?"

"Maybe," he shrugged, flipping a switch and shutting the monitor off. "My Time Lord mind might be looking for the only other mind like it in the universe right now."

"Yeah, but why hasn't this happened before?" she thought aloud. "Because there were none?"

"Right," the Doctor smiled. The pounding in his head was making itself known and all he wanted to do was lay down. "Help me through that door."

Rose slipped beneath his arm and supported his weight as they made way to the bedroom he'd made on the TARDIS. Rose stepped back after he was on the large but not so extravagant bed in the middle of probably the plainest room she'd ever been in. "Where did this come from?"

"Made it a while ago. When you wouldn't let me sleep in the bedroom." He looked up when she didn't respond. "What, you thought I was gonna sleep on the couch when I practically have a spare _house _in the hall closet?"

She let out a laugh and pulled off her blouse, leaving on only her camisole and dress pants. "Nah, I figured you'd stay up all night tinkering in here."

He grinned at her accuracy and rubbed the heels of his hands into his eyes in an attempt to make the pain go away. "Figured, did you?"

She stood up and headed for the door. "I'm gonna go make us something to eat, yeah? Stay here and take it easy—I'll be back in a few."

He sighed and flopped back into the pillows when he heard the door to the TARDIS shut. He would have kept it from her if he'd known it was as severe as a terminal illness. He could tell she was not handling it as well as she made out to be. What she'd gone through when they were ripped apart, when they were reunited—he knew she was breaking inside.

But the gears and motivation were churning in his head again. He had some new ideas, new things to try. Anything to stay with her.


	21. The Silence Part 12

**I AM SO OBSESSED WITH BROADCHURCH THIS IS NOT OKAY. **

**And I'm glad the insulin thing caught some people's attention. It was a last minute add. My dad and his family are diabetic and my mom and her family are hypoglycemic so sugar regulation is a routine thing in my house….**

****When he woke the next morning, Rose's side of the bed was cold. His headache was gone, he noted as he slid his legs over the side of the bed and sat up, testing his ability to stand. He was feeling better.

With a hand trailing the wall just in case he decided to fall over, he made his way back into the house and into their bedroom where Rose was sitting on the floor of their en suite bathroom. Her eyes slid up to meet his and she gave him a hazy smile.

"Think I'm gonna take the day off from work today," she grumbled. "And tomorrow, and the rest of the week."

"Not feeling well?" he asked with a smirk, holding out a hand to pull her up. She leaned against the sink and stuck her tooth brush in her mouth.

"You know what's wrong with me already, don't you," she accused, giving him a quick glance. "How're you doing today?"

"Feeling better. Staying vertical, so far," he smiled. "But you should be at work." His had found her forehead and he nodded in affirmation. "You're fine."

She swatted him away. "I haven't felt fine all morning." He left the bathroom to find clean clothes out in their bedroom. "I felt bad yesterday morning, too. It's like some sort of morning-only sick—"

The Doctor smirked to himself as he rifled through his shirts. "Some sort of what?" he called back. Suddenly she darted past him, pulling on work clothes quickly.

"You know what? I feel fine." She gave him a kiss on the cheek, grabbed a pair of heels from the closet, and raced out the door, fingers fighting tangles out of her hair.

The Doctor grinned knowingly and returned to the TARDIS to do some work.

XXX

Rose's heart was pounding loudly in her ears as she arrived at Torchwood, barely remembering to flash her clearance badges at all the right checkpoints as she stormed through the halls on a mission. She ignored people calling her, not caring whether they thought she didn't hear them or that she was just rude.

Pete, though, grabbed her by the arm and dragged her back a few steps as she passed him. "I thought you called in sick today," he said, concern narrowing his eyes as he studied her flushed face and frantic eyes.

She swallowed the lump that had formed in her throat. "I did—I just needed to come in and talk to someone, that's all."

"You alright?"

"Yeah, I'm great," she said almost sarcastically. "Look, I'm kinda in a hurry—the Doctor is expecting me back in a few and I really don't want him chasing after me."

"Especially in that box of his," Pete muttered, letting Rose go so she could continue racing through the halls.

She wasn't sure what she was feeling. Excitement, dread, hope in either direction. She just needed to know for sure.

"Dr. Amell?" Rose said quietly, leaning on the doorframe of the doctor's small office within Torchwood. The woman looked up at Rose in surprise and took off her reading glasses.

"Rose."

"Do you have time to…?" Rose gestured vaguely to the empty chair in front of her desk.

"Oh, sure, yeah." Dr. Amell close the packet of papers she was reading and pushed them away while Rose shut the door and took a seat. "So what can I help you with?"

"I think I'm pregnant," Rose blurted into her lap.

Dr. Amell leaned back in her chair. "And how possible is this conclusion?"

"Very," she responded slowly. "We've never really…I mean, we both decided…but it's not like we were _trying _we just weren't….precautious."

"Never have been," she said with a smile. She stood and motioned for Rose to follow her. "Let's go find out for sure."

Rose sat in a paper gown at the edge of an examination table, hands knotting in her lap. Her stomach flipped at the thought of what was going on. The Doctor was back at their apartment dying and here she was, finding out if they were pregnant. Sure, they'd talked about having kids _yesterday_ but this was a little fast for her tastes.

Her heart jumped when Dr. Amell reentered the room and leaned against the counter, sifting through papers in her hands.

"Alright," she began hesitantly. "You _are _pregnant." Rose let out a breath as the unknown became certain and relief calmed her heart a bit, excitement making way. "HCG levels are a bit high, which can mean multiples but considering—"

"Considering that the Doctor isn't completely human," Rose finished for her, knowing how uncomfortable the words made some people feel.

"Right. Everything else looks good. You're at about week 5 so we can do an ultrasound any time and see the heartbeat if you want," she suggested, but Rose shook her head.

"Not today."

"There is something else, though," Dr. Amell began, concerned. "And I know how you feel about this, Rose—but I want to do anything I can to make sure you stay healthy. If anything _happens_—"

"What do you mean?" Rose demanded, her voice level and calm.

"I just mean that this might not be an ordinary pregnancy. And if the need arises, the Doctor—I might need to study—"

"You want to study the Doctor if anything goes wrong," Rose finished, relieved.

"Only if we need to," Dr. Amell insisted. "Only for the sake of you and the baby." She hesitated, her jaw working to find the right words to voice her thoughts. "I'm afraid that, with you being completely human, your chances of having a miscarriage is going to be higher than average."

"A miscarriage?"

"There is no real explanation for any miscarriage, but in your case, I can only assume that your body might reject the foreign DNA," Dr. Amell explained. "There's no real treatment other than just taking care of yourself and letting us keep an eye on you."

XXX

Rose returned to the apartment an hour later and immediately found herself in the kitchen with a sharpie in her mouth flipping through pages of the calendar.

"What are you doing?" the Doctor asked quietly from behind his laptop at the kitchen table.

"In the last two months, when have we had sex?" she asked him, pulling the marker out of her mouth.

"In the last two months? March and April?" he asked without even looking at her, his attention still on whatever he was working on.

"Yeah."

"In March—the fourth, seventh, ninth, fifteenth, and the twenty-third. In April—the second, third, ninth, and tenth," he responded, still not giving her his full attention.

"You should stop that," she mumbled, making marks on the calendar.

"Keep your clothes on, then."

"Not _that_," she grumbled, falling into a chair next to him. She sighed and licked her lips. "I'm pregnant."

"I know."

"You knew."

"I did."

"I'm not surprised."

"Knew that, too."

"Stop that," she groaned.

"You like it," he grinned, closing his laptop now to give her his full attention. She crossed her arms on the table and laid her head on top of them, watch the Doctor as he watched her. "It's how I got back from the other universe, you know. Time Lords can cross universes if there's already a Time Lord in it."

"So you used to baby to get back." He nodded. "That's how you knew."

"I would have known regardless," he laughed.

"You told me last night that I'd never be alone." The shake in her voice sobered the Doctor and he tilted his head back. "You didn't mean that you'd survive this. You meant I'd have the baby."

The Doctor slumped down in his chair and crossed his arms across his chest. "I haven't really done much good for you, have I?" he pondered. "I trapped you in an alternate universe away from Mickey, away from your mates. I robbed you of a normal future."

Rose sat up and pressed her hands into the table, looking angry and confused. She glared at him for a second before her face softened into a slight smile. "You're the best thing that's ever happened to me," she mused. "Just before you regenerated, you said I was fantastic. You were the first person to ever believe in me and see some kind of potential. I'd become so stuck in my boring, mundane life that I stopped believing I was—I could be—_special_. You helped me realize that."

He grinned and leaned forward to take her hand in his own and kiss her knuckles. "You've changed me, you know. I _need _you. Stuck with you—that's not so bad."

"Yeah?" She grinned, tongue poking through her teeth.

"Yes."


End file.
